“I think, perhaps, I was when I told her. Yes; I was a fool. It was twenty-three years ago; I had just about forgotten it. When I remembered, I told her. It was too much for her. She is right to stop now. If she can throw me over, thank Heaven she has done so!”
The bitterness of it burst out in that last sentence. Then, quietly, he told Amy’s cousin the story of that long-buried youth. When it was done, John Paul said huskily:—
“West, I don’t know what to think of your telling her; but I know what to think of you. And I know what to think of Amy.”
William West said nothing; he took the little note out of his pocket and turned it over and over.
(“He seemed to go to pieces before my eyes,” John Paul told his wife. “I tell you, Kate, I saw him lose his moral grip! Poor West—poor fellow!”)
Mr. Paul sat helplessly looking at his clergyman, until he had a sense of indecency in watching the suffering of this silent human creature. Then he said vaguely:—
“I suppose you want me to clear out? But just tell me; what do you want me to do?”
“Nothing.”
“But don’t you mean to make any effort to bring her to her senses?” burst out the other.
“There’s nothing to be done,” the lover said. “It’s over—don’t you see?”