"She told me repeatedly, in answer to questions as explicit as I could make them, that she wished him dismissed."
"Well, then, very likely she did."
"Very likely, Celia?"
"Yes. At any rate, it's too late now."
"Yes, it's too late now." He was silent again, and he began to walk the floor, after his old habit, without speaking. He was always mute when he was in pain, and he startled her with the anguish in which he now broke forth. "I give it up! I give it up! Celia, Celia, I'm afraid I did wrong! Yes, I'm afraid that I spoiled two lives. I ventured to lay my sacrilegious hands upon two hearts that a divine force was drawing together, and put them asunder. It was a lamentable blunder,—it was a crime!"
"Why, Owen, how strangely you talk! How could you have done any differently under the circumstances?"
"Oh, I could have done very differently. I might have seen him, and talked with him brotherly, face to face. He was a fearless and generous soul! And I was meanly scared for my wretched little decorums, for my responsibility to her friends, and I gave him no chance."
"We wouldn't let you give him any," interrupted his wife.
"Don't try to deceive yourself, don't try to deceive me, Celia! I know well enough that you would have been glad to have me show mercy; and I would not even show him the poor grace of passing his offer in silence, if I must refuse it. I couldn't spare him even so much as that!"
"We decided—we both decided—that it would be better to cut off all hope at once," urged his wife.