His voice had a grave significance in it. No words that he could have chosen would have been better. The short, quiet sentence was like a sword to divide my hatred, and penetrate to the better part of man. The truth, the unerring force, the reflections of this life's chances and decrees in those words went home. It was not open to him now to repair; later, it might not be open to me to forgive. And later, when all these present vivid feelings were swept away in the past, should I not wish I had forgiven.
I stood silent, and the query went through me—What is forgiveness? Is it to feel again as we have felt before the injury? This is impossible. Do what I would that affection I had had for him could never re-awaken. It was stamped out, obliterated, as a flower is ground into the dust beneath one's heel.
Still the loathing and the hatred I had for him now would pass. Years would cancel it all, and bring with them mere indifference towards him, the thought of him and of his act. To say the words now, and let the time to come slowly fill them with truth, was better, surely, than to reiterate my hatred of him—hatred which years hence would seem almost foolish to me myself.
"I can't think that my forgiveness can be of very serious import to you," I said quietly. "However, it is yours."
"You will shake hands with me, then, won't you?" and he held out his hand.
With an effort I stretched out mine and took his, and held it for a second as in old times.
"Good-bye, Victor," he said, in rather a strained voice, "I shall never cease to regret what I have done."
He hesitated, as if wondering if I should speak. I did not, and he turned and went down the alley, and the darkness closed up after him. I leant silent against the wall, hating myself for forgiving him and letting him go, and yet knowing I would do the same again.
"One must forgive, one must forgive; otherwise one is no better than brute," I thought mechanically. "Later I shall be glad,"—and similar phrases by which Principle excuses itself to furious, disappointed Nature.
After a time I grew calmer, and I went back to the hotel and up to my room. It seemed emptier, blanker still, now that even the dead body of the dog had gone. In the grate, and scattered over the carpet, remained still remnants of black tinder. I felt suddenly tired, worn out. I flung myself, dressed as I was, upon the bed, and lay there in a sort of stupor. And the slow, dark hours of that terrible night of depression tramped over me with leaden footsteps.