The Wisdom of Fools. Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

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      He was deeply moved. He got up and walked the length of the room. Amy sat silently looking down at her hands in her lap. When he came back, his eyes were full of peace.

      “That is all, dearest; now we will forget it. You know my life as you do your own.”

      “Forget it?” she repeated, with a sudden, sobbing laugh, that tore at the man’s heart.

      “Amy! dearest! have I shocked you so? Remember, it was twenty-three years ago; I was only a boy. Let me tell you how it was: I was madly in love with a woman; at least, it was not love, but I thought it was; she fascinated me, and”—

      “Oh, go on—go on!” she interrupted, hoarsely; “as if I cared about that!”

      He tried to take her hand, but she made a pretense of arranging the flowers in her belt; her head was turned a little from him. He leaned forward, with a grave authority to command her attention, took the pansies from her, and held them in his hand.

      “I was possessed to marry her. Of course, she would not look at me—a penniless, charity student. But I strained every nerve to win her. It was the old story. She took my flowers, or theatre tickets, or anything I could give her. Curious, the mercenariness of the woman did not revolt me! But I was mad about her. I thought, at last, that if I had money I could give her some jewels she wanted, and perhaps she would accept me. That was how it came about. She took the diamonds, and eloped with a married man two days afterwards.”

      As he told the story, the grossness of it all came over him—the offense to the exquisite delicacy of the girl beside him.

      “But I ought not to have told you this,” he stammered.

      “What?” she said dully. “About the woman? Oh, as if that mattered!” She turned from him sharply, putting the back of her hand against her lips as though to hide their quiver.

      Then she burst out: “Oh, why did you tell me? Why? why? Oh, I wish you had not told me!” She shook from head to foot. “But it will make no difference! I will not let it make any difference. I am going to marry you. Only—I never knew you!”

      Those most terrible words, those words with which Love destroys itself, came like a blow between the eyes. He grew very pale. “ ‘Not make any difference’?” he repeated, blankly, “why, what difference could it make?”

      She stopped crying, suddenly, and stood, panting, steadying herself by her hands upon his breast, and staring at him. There was something almost terrifying in this sudden pause and in her burning look.

      “It’s the one thing,” she said, “don’t you see? that lasts. It isn’t like—other things.”

      “But it was not I,” he said, mechanically. “Not I, the man you—you thought you knew. It was a boy, twenty-three years ago. Amy, Amy! Twenty-three years ago!”

      She did not listen; she kept repeating to herself: “It shall make no difference. I will not let it make any difference.” Alas, it was not for her to say! The difference was made; the jewel crushed under foot is no more a jewel; the rose thrown into the fire is no more a rose. The stained human soul is no more the innocent human soul.

      “But you must listen to me, Amy,” he said. “No, I will not speak until you are calm. Sit down. Look at me. Now, listen to what I have to say.” He spoke slowly and gently, as one does to a terrified, unreasonable child.

      “Dear, I had forgotten it. So little is it a part of my life that I had forgotten it. When I remembered it last night, it was with a sense of astonishment, a sense of pity for the mad boy who did it. I had no personal shame—it seemed to belong to some one else, whom I watched with sorrow and indignation. I do not believe that to-day, more than twenty years afterwards, I have any business to think of it.”

      “Then why did you tell me?” she said wearily. “Oh, don’t talk about it any more. I am going to forget it. Good-by. I am going upstairs. I have a headache. Good-by.”

      She let her hand slip listlessly out of his, and left him standing, blankly, his lips parted for another protest, and the flowers from her belt between his fingers.

V

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      As he went out past the drawing-room door, Mrs. Paul called to him:—

      “Do come here a moment, Mr. West. Isn’t Amy pretty in her wedding-dress? You really must tell me what to do about something. There is a family”—and she entered upon a puzzling question of relief work, her forehead gathering into a frown, yet with her kind eyes denying the severe common-sense of her statement, that if a man will not work neither shall he eat.

      “But you see we can’t let the children go hungry,” she ended.

      The consideration of other people’s weaknesses and wickedness gave William West time to get his breath; he threw himself into the question with keen and intelligent sympathy. He pointed out this; he suggested that; he cleared the puzzle out of Mrs. Paul’s face, and all the time he was half deafened by a clamoring suspicion: “Have I been a fool? She will never forget it! It will always be between us. I’ve been a cowardly fool.”

      “Well, that’s all settled,” said Mrs. Paul, with an air of relief; “now tell me, what day shall I have Amy’s things sent to the rectory? And shall I take the silver from the bank the day before you arrive? Is it safe to leave it at your house? I hate the responsibility of other people’s silver!”

      “Oh, certainly, yes,” he answered, suddenly absent; and, with a curt good-by, left her.

      Somehow or other, he hardly knew how, he got through the day. There was a service in the afternoon, and there were other people’s affairs and sorrows to remember; fortunately, there always is duty for us poor human creatures as a refuge from our thoughts! Duties to be done saved William West from desperately going back to Amy to explain. For he was guilty of the impulse of “explanation,” the babble with which the weak mind is forever annotating its remarks or its opinions.

      Well, the day passed. In spite of a craving to see Amy that was almost agonizing, he held on to his common-sense, and left her to herself. In the evening, his lawyer came in, bringing some papers in regard to certain property which it was the minister’s intention to make over to his wife, and the looking these over, and the business talk, was a relief to him. He began to feel that he had taken Amy’s perturbation much too seriously; it would be all right; she would see things clearly when the first dismay had passed. He thought, tenderly, that he must not let her feel any regret for having for a moment shown him her pain at what he had told her. Her pain was only part of her exquisite goodness, that goodness which held her, remote and lovely, like some pure and luminous star, so far above the sordid meannesses and wickednesses of common life that she could not understand them; perhaps even she could not pity them. Only the sinlessness which was in all points tempted like as we are can at once understand and pity; his thought, chastened and passionate, fled back to his Master for comfort—yet there was no reproach of Amy in his mind.

      It must have been after ten, as he and Mr. Woodhouse sat before the broad writing-table, with the litter of papers and memoranda before them, that John Paul suddenly burst into the room.

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