“Then you must know how utterly wretched I am.”
Glancing over her shoulder I could see the eyes of her husband fastened upon her with an expression which stirred me to put forth my best efforts.
Then it came over me how pent-up all this intensity of feeling must be. I realized how impossible it would seem to her to speak of it. Taking my life in my hand—for I was mortally afraid—I rushed in, after the manner of my kind, where angels fear to tread.
“Did you love him then so much?”
The pupils of her eyes enlarged until they were all black with excitement. She caught both my hands in hers.
“Only God Himself knows how I loved him,” she whispered.
I knew then that all Charlie had said was true, and, weak coward that I was, if I could have undone the past, I would have given him back to her. I was borne away by a glimpse of such love. O Charlie Hardy! And you cast this from you for a pair of blue eyes!
“How came you to love such a weak man?” I asked tremblingly.
“That is what I want to know. How could I? How can girls of my sort love so hopelessly beneath us? I’ve thought and wondered over that question until my brain has almost turned, and the only consolation I find is that I am not the only one. Other women, cleverer than I, have loved the most contemptible of men and have been deceived just as I was. Oh, if he or I had only died before I discovered the truth! If I could have mourned him honorably and felt that my grief was dignified! But I won’t allow myself to grieve over him. I tell myself that I am well out of it and that I ought to be glad. But instead of gladness there is a dull, miserable ache in my heart, which I feel even in my sleep. Not for him; I don’t mourn for him, but for myself—for my fallen idols and my shattered ideals. What will such men have to answer for? I doubt if I ever can believe in anything human again.”
“Anything human,” I repeated gladly.