I have been resting all yesterday and to-day, and I think I shall soon pick up my strength; but not if you write me such cruel letters. Oh, mother, for father's sake, who told me always to take care of you, don't let me think that what I have done has been all in vain!
Virginia.
Osbert Gaunt pushed back his chair. His face was ghastly, and the drops stood on his forehead. He felt as if the house were too small, too close, to contain him. With shaking hands he pushed the letter and its envelope into a drawer, stumbled to his feet, hastened from the room, snatched a hat from the hall, and went out into the moonlight.
He walked on blindly, striding fast, taking the direction that led him down into the long avenue through the park, from which one approached the house upon its southern side. He knew now what he had done. He had immolated an innocent victim. He felt as if there might be blood upon his hands. Stories are told of men who, having lost the use of a portion of the brain, have had this restored by means of a sudden shock or a terrific blow. Something of the kind had now happened to Gaunt. He looked back upon the man whom he had been, whom he had gradually become, during the past twenty years, as upon a leper. He shuddered at the very idea of such a monster.
Always before the eye of his imagination was the outline of Virginia's pale beauty, suffused with rose and gold. He recalled her patient quietude, her dignity and sadness. He knew now what she had been feeling. She had been quivering under the lash of her mother's diabolical selfishness; she had just relieved the anguish of her soul by writing that letter.
And he! What of the man who had tempted her?
A wild idea of crawling to her feet, of kissing them, of crying to her for pardon, turned him about and sent him striding unevenly half a mile upon his homeward way.
The futility of such a course suddenly struck him and once more turned him back.
She might pardon. Yes. She was the sort of nature that would pardon. How might that help their future together? He knew that there could be no such thing as a future together for them. He hardly wished it.
His passion of pity and remorse was quite untinged with any passion of desire. He thought of Virgie as of a saint, a creature apart, something to be rescued from himself, if such an end could possibly be compassed. If he spoke to her, if he begged forgiveness, he would have to confess his own late action. He would have to say: "I am such a cad, so lost to any sense of honour, that I first assured you of the safety of your private correspondence, and then deliberately read it."