"No—I'm sure he didn't. He was terribly, terribly sorry for her. Ted is capable of generosity at times, Peter—I'm not fond of him for nothing!—and he was generous then. But of course Sheila reproached herself. I can imagine what she suffered, and how bitterly she censured herself. I can imagine, too, that she's been atoning ever since. It would be so like her to atone with her whole life for a mistake, an accident. If she had married another man—it wouldn't have happened."
"The mistake, the accident, wouldn't have happened?"
"Ah, that might have happened in any case. I meant the atonement."
"But," objected Peter, "you said Ted did not blame her. How, then, could he be responsible?"
"He could let the atonement go on! He isn't a subtle person, but I believe he's divined that, and let it continue. I knew, before Sheila married him, that he would not care for her art. I knew that he would resent any vital interest she might have outside of her marriage. And knowing this, I've concluded that when her conscience worked along the line of his own wishes, it was too much for him; he simply couldn't help taking the advantage circumstances had offered him."
"Yet you say he is capable of generosity!"
"Capable of generosity at times, Peter. And so he is. Most of us have our generosities and our meannesses. Ted's like the rest of us in both respects. The real trouble is that he's the wrong man for Sheila. If she had married you, the same accident might have happened, but the atonement wouldn't. For you would have wanted her to write; you would have made her feel it wrong not to write. It's not that you're a better man than Ted, either; it's that you're a better man for Sheila. You ought to have married her, my dear. I meant you to marry her!"
Peter rose hastily from his chair and walked to the window, standing there with his back to Mrs. Caldwell. Very rigidly he stood, his hands at his side, tightly closed. When he finally turned again into the room, his face was white.
"Why do you tell me that now—now that it's too late?" he asked. And his voice shook with the question.
At something in that white face of his, at something in his unsteady voice, Mrs. Caldwell grew very gentle: "Because I'm a blundering old woman, Peter dear. But, since I have blundered, let us talk frankly. I did intend you to marry Sheila. I plotted and planned for it from the time she was a little girl in your rhetoric class. I believed that in a marriage with you lay her chance to be both a happy and a wonderful woman. And then—Ted married her instead! But there's still something you can do for her. You can watch over her when I'm gone, Peter. You can put out a saving hand now and then, if you see she needs it. When I'm dead—and that will be soon, my dear—you'll be the only person in the world who understands her. If I can feel that you'll always be there ready to help her, I can die in peace. Bottled up genius is a dangerous thing. Sometimes I am afraid for Sheila! But if you'll promise to watch over her for me, I can die with my heart at rest."