On one of Cissy’s wakeful nights, she told Valancy her poor little story. They were sitting by the open window. Cissy could not get her breath lying down that night. An inglorious gibbous moon was hanging over the wooded hills and in its spectral light Cissy looked frail and lovely and incredibly young. A child. It did not seem possible that she could have lived through all the passion and pain and shame of her story.
“He was stopping at the hotel across the lake. He used to come over in his canoe at night—we met in the pines down the shore. He was a young college student—his father was a rich man in Toronto. Oh, Valancy, I didn’t mean to be bad—I didn’t, indeed. But I loved him so—I love him yet—I’ll always love him. And I—didn’t know—some things. I didn’t—understand. Then his father came and took him away. And—after a little—I found out—oh, Valancy,—I was so frightened. I didn’t know what to do. I wrote him—and he came. He—he said he would marry me, Valancy.”
“And why—and why?——”
“Oh, Valancy, he didn’t love me any more. I saw that at a glance. He—he was just offering to marry me because he thought he ought to—because he was sorry for me. He wasn’t bad—but he was so young—and what was I that he should keep on loving me?”
“Never mind making excuses for him,” said Valancy a bit shortly. “So you wouldn’t marry him?”
“I couldn’t—not when he didn’t love me any more. Somehow—I can’t explain—it seemed a worse thing to do than—the other. He—he argued a little—but he went away. Do you think I did right, Valancy?”
“Yes, I do. You did right. But he——”
“Don’t blame him, dear. Please don’t. Let’s not talk about him at all. There’s no need. I wanted to tell you how it was—I didn’t want you to think me bad——”
“I never did think so.”
“Yes, I felt that—whenever you came. Oh, Valancy, what you’ve been to me! I can never tell you—but God will bless you for it. I know He will—‘with what measure ye mete.’”