"I was young—and very foolish, I suppose."
With that confession, spoken with simple dignity, she broke off again. Clearly, some knowledge of the past she deemed it necessary to impart to me. If she halted over her words, it was rather to dismiss what was irrelevant to the matter in hand, in which she sought my counsel.
"I did not see him for four years—did not wish to…. And he vanished completely…. Four years!—just a welcome blank!"
Her shoulders lifted and a little shiver went over her.
"But even a blank like that can become unendurable. To be always dragging at a chain, and not knowing where it leads to…." Her hand slipped from the gold cross on her breast and fell to the other in her lap, which it clutched tightly. "Four years…. I tried to make myself believe that he was gone forever—was dead. It was wicked of me."
My murmur of polite dissent led her to repeat her words.
"Yes, and even worse than that. During the past month I have actually prayed that he might be dead…. I shall be punished for it."
I ventured no rejoinder to these words of self-condemnation. Joyce, I reflected, mundanely, had clearly swept her off her feet in the ardour of their first meeting and instant love.
"It must be a great relief to you," I murmured at length, "to have it all definitely settled at last."
"If I could only feel that it was!"