"'You will have time to write to me by this evening's post.Ishall stop at Zeeland to-morrow,on my way back,and ask for a letter at the post office.I forbid explanations and excuses.Iforbid heartless allusions to your duty.Let me have an answer which does not keep me for a moment in suspense.
"'For the last time,I ask you:Do you consent to be my wife?
Say,Yes--or say,No.'
"I gave her back the letter--with the one comment on it,which the circumstances permitted me to make:
"'You said No?'
"She bent her head in silence.
"I went on--not willingly,for I would have spared her if it had been possible.I said,'He died,despairing,by his own hand--and you knew it?'
"She looked up.'No!To say that I knew it is too much.To say that I feared it is the truth.'
"'Did you love him?'
"She eyed me in stern surprise.'Have Iany right to love?
Could I disgrace an honorable man by allowing him to marry me?
You look as if you held me responsible for his death.'
"'Innocently responsible,'I said.
"She still followed her own train of thought.'Do you suppose Icould for a moment anticipate that he would destroy himself,when I wrote my reply?He was a truly religious man.If he had been in his right mind,he would have shrunk from the idea of suicide as from the idea of a crime.'
"On reflection,I was inclined to agree with her.In his terrible position,it was at least possible that the sight of the razor (placed ready,with the other appliances of the toilet,for his fellow-traveler's use)might have fatally tempted a man whose last hope was crushed,whose mind was tortured by despair.Ishould have been merciless indeed,if I had held Miss Jethro accountable thus far.But I found it hard to sympathize with the course which she had pursued,in permitting Mr.Brown's death to be attributed to murder without a word of protest.'Why were you silent?'I said.
"She smiled bitterly.
"'A woman would have known why,without asking,'she replied.'Awoman would have understood that I shrank from a public confession of my shameful past life.A woman would have remembered what reasons I had for pitying the man who loved me,and for accepting any responsibility rather than associate his memory,before the world,with an unworthy passion for a degraded creature,ending in an act of suicide.Even if I had made that cruel sacrifice,would public opinion have believed such a person as I am--against the evidence of a medical man,and the verdict of a jury?No,Mr.Morris!I said nothing,and I was resolved to say nothing,so long as the choice of alternatives was left to me.On the day when Mr.Mirabel implored me to save him,that choice was no longer mine--and you know what I did.And now again when suspicion (after all the long interval that had passed)has followed and found that innocent man,you know what I have done.
What more do you ask of me?'
"'Your pardon,'I said,'for not having understood you--and a last favor.May I repeat what I have heard to the one person of all others who ought to know,and who must know,what you have told me?'
"It was needless to hint more plainly that I was speaking of Emily.Miss Jethro granted my request.
"'It shall be as you please,'she answered.'Say for me to hisdaughter,that the grateful remembrance of her is my one refuge from the thoughts that tortured me,when we spoke together on her last night at school.She has made this dead heart of mine feel a reviving breath of life,when I think of her.Never,in our earthly pilgrimage,shall we meet again--I implore her to pity and forget me.Farewell,Mr.Morris;farewell forever.'
"I confess that the tears came into my eyes.When I could see clearly again,I was alone in the room."