Louise looked down.
“He was not omnipotent,” she said huskily. “He ruled my heart only, not my soul.”
“I suppose you have tried to love your husband?” I said.
“Tried? Oh, Ruth, I have tried so hard! He is so good to me. He knows everything. Of course I told him. That was why we were married so suddenly. He wished it and urged such excellent reasons, and I had so much respect for him and his wisdom in what is best, that I married him. I thought I could love him. I always thought that if I didn’t love—the other one—I should love Norris; but I can’t. I believe my power of love is gone forever. I feel sometimes as if the best part of me had been killed—not died of its own accord, but as if it had been murdered.”
“Poor child!” I said. “Why don’t you talk this over with your husband?”
“Oh, Ruth, how could I?”
“Well, may I talk to you? Will it hurt you?”
“Nothing that you would say can hurt me, dear.”
“Then let me say just this. You have been trying to do in weeks what nature would take years to do. In real life you cannot lose your love and heal your worse than widowed heart and love anew as you would in private theatricals. You have outraged your own delicate sensibilities, but not with your husband’s consent. He does not want you to try to love him. No good man does. He wants you to love him because you can’t help yourself—because it seems to your heart to be the only natural thing to do. ‘When the song’s gone out of your life, you can’t start another while it’s a-ringing in your ears. It’s best to have a bit o’ silence, and out of that maybe a psalm’ll come by and by.’”
“Oh, Ruth, dear Ruth, say that again,” she cried, turning towards me with tears in her lovely eyes. I repeated it.