In the purposeless career of a man of his sort, there is much that it is well to forget. And in Desboro's brief career there were many things that he would not care to have such a girl as Jacqueline hear about—so much, alas! of folly and stupidity, so much of idleness, so much unworthy, that now in his increasing chagrin and mortification, in the painful reaction from happy pride to alarm and self-contempt, he could not even guess what had occurred, or for which particular folly he was beginning to pay.
Long since, both in his rooms in town, and at Silverwood, he had destroyed the silly souvenirs of idleness and folly. He thought now of the burning sacrifice he had so carelessly made that day in the library—and how the flames had shrivelled up letter and fan, photograph and slipper. And he could not remember that he had left a rag of lace or a perfumed envelope unburned.
Had the ghosts of their owners risen to confront him on his own hearthstone, standing already between him and this young girl he had married?
What whisper had reached her guiltless ears? What rumour, what breath of innuendo? Must a man still be harassed who has done with folly for all time—who aspires to better things—who strives to change his whole mode of life merely for the sake of the woman he loves—merely to be more worthy of her?
As he sat there so silently in the car beside her, his dark thoughts travelled back again along the weary, endless road to yesterday. Since he had known and loved her, his thoughts had often and unwillingly sought that shadowy road where the only company were ghosts—phantoms of dead years that sometimes smiled, sometimes reproached, sometimes menaced him with suddenly remembered eyes and voiceless but familiar words forever printed on his memory.
Out of that grey vista, out of that immaterial waste where only impalpable shapes peopled the void, vanished, grew out of nothing only to reappear, something had come to trouble the peace of mind of the woman he loved—some spectre of folly had arisen and had whispered in her ear, so that, at the mockery, the light had died out in her fearless eyes and her pure mind was clouded and her tender heart was weighted with this thing—whatever it might be—this echo of folly which had returned to mock them both.
"Dearest," he said, drawing her to him so that her cold cheek rested against his, "whatever I was, I am no longer. You said you could forgive."
"I do—forgive."
"Can you not forget, too?"