"I ought certainly to have given Dorothea opportunity to expiate her fault. She was in the right path," said Goswyn. "The result of her frivolity had caused her a panic of terror: the entire affair had been a burden to her from the beginning, as you can see by her relief that it is at an end. One must take her as she is. All this has less significance for Dorothea than for any other woman whom I know. It has not entered into her soul. It has left nothing behind it but a horror of it all from beginning to end."
Otto looked suspiciously at his brother. Was this Goswyn who talked thus?--Goswyn the strict,--Goswyn, so uncompromising where honour was concerned?
Yes, it was Goswyn; there was no denying it.
"And you think that I should--I should--forgive?" murmured Otto, hoarsely, as if ashamed to utter the words.
"If you can so far conquer yourself."
Otto stooped and picked up the letters that had fallen upon the floor. He glanced through one of them. "There is not much tenderness in these lines, I must say." And he dropped at his side the hand holding the packet.
"One piece of advice I must give you," said Goswyn, with a coldness in his tone which he could not quite disguise. "If you forgive, you must have the strength of soul to forgive absolutely. If you forgive, throw those letters into the fire: Dorothea must never learn that you know anything."
"Yes," Otto said, dully. Suddenly he went close to Goswyn, and, looking him full in the eye, said, between his teeth, "Would you forgive?"
Goswyn started. He had no answer ready. "I--I never should have married Dorothea," he said, evasively.
"I understand," Otto said, in the same hoarse whisper. "You never would have forgiven; but it is all right for stupid Otto."