A brief silence followed while the shadow of a great white cloud drifted across the sky, blotting out the sunshine for a moment.
All the flowers strayed down upon the steps and lay there forgotten, as the hands that held them were clasped together on the girl’s breast, as if the mere knowledge of a lot like this lay heavy at her heart.
Satisfied with his effect, the story-teller was tempted to add another stroke, and went on with the fluency of one who saw all things dramatically, and could not help coloring them in his own vivid fancy.
“That seems very terrible to you, but in truth the physical affliction was not so great as the loss that tried his soul; for he loved ardently, and had just won his suit, when the misfortune came which tied him to a bed of torment for some years. A fall from heaven to hell could hardly have seemed worse than to be precipitated from the heights of such a happiness to the depths of such a double woe; for she, the beautiful, beloved woman proved disloyal, and left him lying there, like Prometheus, with the vulture of remembered bliss to rend his heart.”
“Could he not forget her?” and Gladys trembled with indignation at the perfidy which seemed impossible to a nature born for self-sacrifice.
“He never will forget or forgive, although the man she married well avenged him while he lived, and bequeathed her a memory which all his gold could not gild. Her fate is the harder now; for the old love has revived, and Helwyze is dearer than in his days of unmarred strength. He knows it, but will not accept the tardy atonement; for contempt has killed his love, and with him there is no resurrection of the dead. A very patient and remorseful love is hers: for she has been humiliated in spirit, as he can never be, by the bodily ills above which he has risen so heroically that his courage has subdued the haughtiest woman I ever met.”
“You know her, then?” and Gladys bent to look into his face, with her own shadowed by an intuition of the truth.
“Yes.”
“I am afraid to listen any more. It is terrible to know that such bitterness and grief lie hidden in the hearts about me. Why did you tell me this?” she demanded, shrinking from him, as if some prophetic fear had stepped between them.
“Why did I? Because I wished to make you pity my friend, and help me put a little brightness into his hard life. You can do it if you will, for you soothe and please him, and few possess the power to give him any comfort. He makes no complaint, asks no pity, and insists on ignoring the pain which preys upon him, till it grows too great to be concealed; then shuts himself up alone, to endure it like a Spartan. Forgive me if in my eagerness I have said too much, and forget whatever troubled you.”