You stood gazing at me in amazement, large-eyed as a startled deer. I wonder what your first words would have been to me if Mr. Whitely had not turned your mind into another channel by saying, “I do not think that we need search further for Dr. Hartzmann’s motives in making his innuendoes.”
“Miss Walton,” I urged, “my love for you, far from making your faith in me less or my motive that of a rival, should convince you that I spoke only for your sake, since you yourself know that my love has been neither hopeful nor self-seeking.”
I think you pitied me, for you answered gently, and all traces of the scorn and indignation you had shown just before were gone from your face and manner.
“Dr. Hartzmann,” you said, “I cannot allow myself to listen to or weigh such indefinite imputations against Mr. Whitely. I will give you one week to explain or substantiate what you have implied; and unless within that time you do so, I shall accept the offer of marriage which he has honored me by making. Do not let me detain you further. Good-evening.”
I passed out of the room a broken-hearted man, without strength enough to hold up my head, and hardly able in my weakness to crawl back to my study. As I sit and write, every breath brings with it the feeling that a knife is being thrust into my breast, and I am faint with the pain. But for this racking cough and burning fever I might have made a better fight, and have been able to think of some way of saving you. But even in my suffering I have reached one conclusion. To-morrow I shall go to Mr. Whitely and tell him that you must know the truth concerning the book, and that if he will not tell you I shall. I shall never be able to hold up my head again; but that is nothing, if I can but save you. Oh, my dearest love, the sacrifice of life, of honor, the meeting ignominy or death for your sake, will be nothing to me but hap
[Transcriber’s Note: The text ends in the middle of a word. The remainder of this page is missing in the original image and other available editions.]
XXV
January 10, 1895. This evening I have for the first time re-read this—I know not what to call it, for it is neither diary nor letter—the story of my love; and as I read, the singular sensation came over me that I was following, not my own thoughts and experiences, but those of another man. Five years ago, half mad with grief, and physically and nervously exhausted to the brink of a breakdown, I spent my evenings writing my thoughts, in the hope that the fatigue of the task would bring the sleep I sought in vain. Little I then wrote seems to me now, in my new life, what I could ever possibly have confided to paper, much less have felt. Yet here is my own handwriting to vouch for every word, and to tell me that the morbid chronicle is no other than my own. I cannot believe that mere years have brought so startling a mental change, and I therefore think that much of it is an expression, not of myself, but of the illness which put an end to my writing. If proof were needed of the many kinds of men each man contains, this manuscript of mine would furnish it; for the being I have read about this evening is no more the Donald Maitland of to-night than—Ah, well, to my task of telling what has wrought this change, since it must be written.
For a month I was confined to my bed with pneumonia, and the attack so weakened me that I did not leave my room for five weeks more. During that time Mrs. Blodgett’s kindness was constant, and her face is the only memory that stands out from the hours of my acute torture. While I was convalescing, she came once, and sometimes twice, each day, bringing me flowers, fruit, jellies, wines, and whatever else her love could suggest. It was amusing to see her domineer over the doctor, trained nurse, and landlady, and I soon learned to whom to make my pleas for extra liberty or special privileges. No request, however whimsical, seemed too much for her affection, though my demands were unceasing, in the selfishness of my invalidism. Only one thing I dared not ask her, and that was not from fear that it would be refused, but from cowardice. I longed to have her speak of you, but during those weeks she never mentioned your name.