I did not attempt to struggle against our fate. I knew it was hopeless. She did not move; nor did her arms relax their straining tension while time went by us unheeded, until—
“I love you, David mon adoré. I have always loved you, with all my being,” she said, looking into my eyes.
“Bernoline, I would marry you now, to-day. I could go with you anywhere, into any life—you and your child—nothing can matter,” I said brokenly.
“I know.” She tried to smile and couldn’t. “Thank you, dear, for not making it harder. And now come.”
She held out her hand and, taking it, I followed her blindly.
All that I remember is my standing there in the swept garden of the convent, is seeing her take the child from the nurse and raise it to her shoulder. Thus bearing her cross, she went out of my life forever.
* * * * *
All the rest is only numbed pain and incomprehension,—weeks and months. To-day I am alive, and the world has somehow come back to me. How, I don’t know.
Now that I have written it down, I feel as though something had changed in me. Our sorrows destroy us, or themselves. Somewhere before, I remember writing that. Something is gone in me that the rest may struggle up and go on.