“But might he not be so busy he could not write?”
“He would take the hours for sleeping, because writing would be far pleasanter than sleeping. Of course there are accidents, serious illness, and so forth. I speak of natural, happy, passional attraction.”
“Why, I have not written myself sometimes because, indeed, I loved him so much,” said Susie.
“Ah! I was calculating the motives of my own sex. I doubt if the Devil himself could fathom all a woman’s motives.”
“I am sorry you think so, sir,” said the serious little Susie. “I mean I could not write because I wanted so to keep his love, and feared to reproach him, feared to be too loving, feared and distrusted my power every way; and so I often tore up letter after letter—often brought them back from the post-office door, and did not write perhaps for days; and yet I loved him so, all the time, that I could not sleep.”
“Poor child!” said the doctor, taking her hand. “Don’t you see you were but proving my rule, for in the first place you did write continually, according to your own confession; and then you remember I said happy passional attraction.”
“Oh, yes. I see you are right. You are always right; but do you not think love may sometimes return when once it goes out of the heart?”
“That’s a deep question, little woman—the rehabilitation of love. In romances, it happens often enough; but I am an old fellow, and I never knew a case in actual life. It is like small-pox, I suspect, and never breaks out the second time.
“But people do love deeply the second time.”
“Yes. I see my comparison is not well chosen; well, like the water of a river which never passes over its bed but once.”