For,
say what we will, we reconcile ourselves to the inevitable sooner than
to those sorrows which we might have saved ourselves had we deemed it
right.
"You insinuated once that it was all my fault," she said. "Perhaps it
was--if fault there be. But if I tempted him, it must have been
generosity that made him yield to the temptation. He pitied me, and was
ready to make me happy by devoting himself to me, since that was what I
seemed to require. And I agree with you now. I don't think we should,
either of us, have found any real happiness in that way. But, oh, how I
long for him! for his friendship! for his companionship! for his love!
It is hard, hard, hard, if he does not miss me as I do him."
Then I told her: "But he does. And he did not yield to your decision
until I had convinced him that he could never make you happy in such a
position."
A great sigh of relief escaped her. And then I saw that I ought to have
been frank with her from the first. It strengthened her to know that
they still had something left to them in common, though that something
was only their grief.
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