“Ernest, I am honored beyond my dreams by what you have said. To be the wife of so good a man as you would be heaven. But am I good enough for you?”
“Immy!” Chirnside gasped, “you’re not going to tell me you’ve been wicked!”
“I’ve been wicked enough, but not very wicked—considering. The thing I must tell you about is—it’s terribly hard to tell you, dear. But you ought to know, you have a right to know. And when you know, you may not think—you may not think—you may feel that you wouldn’t care to marry me. I wouldn’t blame you—I’d understand, dear—but——”
“Tell me! In heaven’s name, tell me!”
RoBards was stabbed with a sudden knowledge of what tortured her thought. He wanted to cry out to her, “Don’t tell! Don’t speak! I forbid you!”
But that would have betrayed his contemptible position as eavesdropper. And, after all, what right had he to rebuke such honesty? She knew her soul. She was inspired perhaps with the uncanny wisdom of young lovers.
The wish to confess—though “confess” was not the word for her guiltless martyrdom—was a proof of her nobility. It would be a test of this young saint’s mettle. If he shrank from her, it would rescue her from a pigeon-hearted recreant. If he loved her all the more for her mischance, he would prove himself better than he seemed, more Christlike than he looked.
And so RoBards, guessing what blighting knowledge Immy was about to unfold, stood in the dark and listened. Tears of pity for her scalded his clenched eyelids and dripped bitter into his quivering mouth.
Unseeing and unseen, he heard his child murmuring her little tragedy to the awesmitten boy at her side. She seemed as pitifully beautiful as some white young leper whispering through a rag, “Unclean!”
What would this pious youth think now of the God that put his love and this girl to such a test? Would he howl blasphemies at heaven? Would he cower away from the accursed woman or would he fling his arms about her and mystically heal her by the very divinity of his yearning?