“Don’t say that!” the invalid exclaimed eagerly. “Nothing can degrade us but our own wrong-doing, and the true lowering is that which lowers us only to raise us higher in the end.”
Imogen considered.
“I don’t know that I quite understand you,” she said. “I am afraid you are too clever for me. I am not clever, and I have never thought much about religious things; they seem so dull and difficult—at least nearly always. I know I am wrong now; I am useless and selfish and discontented.”
“The last is sure, thank God for it, to follow on the two others,” her new friend interpolated.
Imogen glanced at her earnestly: the reverent expression struck her. “But,” she went on, “for the thing itself, the miserable mistake and mortification, I don’t think honestly that I was to blame, except that I was silly and, I suppose, vain.”
Her candour impressed the other favourably. It is a proof of real humility to own one’s self vain.
“You must have been very young,” she said almost more gently than she had yet spoken. “Supposing you begin at the now; try to put right some of the wrong you now are conscious of. Do not think me officious or presumptuous,” she added. Then almost in a whisper, “The dying are privileged, you know.”
“Oh, don’t!” Imogen exclaimed, raising her hand as if to ward off an impending blow. Then she answered by a question, “Shall you be here to-morrow morning, about this time?”
“Yes, if it is fine, I think I may say certainly so.”
“I am going to think,” said the girl simply. “And perhaps you will let me talk to you a little more. To-morrow is only Thursday, and we don’t go till Monday. I do hope I have not tired you?” she added anxiously.