The Helpmate Part 2

"Then," he said, "I am profoundly sorry. If I had realised that, I would not have spoken to you as I did."

The memory of it stung her.

"That," she said, "was--in any circ.u.mstances--unpardonable."

"I know it was. And I repeat, I am profoundly sorry. But, you see, I thought you knew all the time, and that you had consented to forget it.

And I thought, don't you know, it was--well, rather hard on me to have it all raked up again like that. Now I see how very hard it was on you, dear. Your not knowing makes all the difference."

"It does indeed. If I _had_ known----"

"I understand. You wouldn't have married me?"

"I should not."

"Dear--do you suppose I didn't know that?"

"I know nothing."

"Do you remember the day I asked you why you cared for me, and you said it was because you knew I was good?"

Her lip trembled.

"And of course I know it's been an awful shock to you to discover that--I--was _not_ so good."

She turned away her face.

"But I never meant you to discover it. Not for yourself, like this. I couldn't have forgiven myself--after what you told me. I meant to have told you myself--that evening--but my poor little sister promised me that she would. She said it would be easier for you to hear it from her. Of course I believed her. There _were_ things she could say that I couldn't."

"She never said a word."

"Are you sure?"

"Perfectly. Except--yes--she _did_ say----"

It was coming back to her now.

"Do you mind telling me exactly what she said?"

"N--no. She made me promise that if I ever found things in you that I didn't understand, or that I didn't like----"

"Well--what did she make you promise?"

"That I wouldn't be hard on you. Because, she said, you'd had such a miserable life."

"Poor Edith! So that was the nearest she could get to it. Things you didn't understand and didn't like!"

"I didn't know what she meant."

"Of course you didn't. Who could? But I'm sorry to say that Edith made me pretty well believe you did."

He was silent a while, trying to fathom the reason of his sister's strange duplicity. Apparently he gave it up.

"You can't be a brute to a poor little woman with a bad spine," said he; "but I'm not going to forgive Edith for that."

Anne flamed through her pallor. "For what?" she said. "For not having had more courage than yourself? Think what you put on her."

"I didn't. She took it on herself. Edith's got courage enough for anybody. She would never admit that her spine released her from all moral obligations. But I suppose she meant well."

The spirit of the grey, cold morning seemed to have settled upon Anne.

She gazed sternly out over the eastern sea. Preoccupied with what he considered Edith's perfidy, he failed to understand his wife's silence and her mood.

"Edith's very fond of you. You won't let this make any difference between you and her?"

"Between her and me it can make no difference. I am very fond of Edith."

"But the fact remains that you married me under false pretences? Is that what you mean?"

"You may certainly put it that way."

"I understand your point of view completely. I wish you could understand mine. When Edith said there were things she could have told you that I couldn't, she meant that there were extenuating circ.u.mstances."

"They would have made no difference."

"Excuse me, they make all the difference. But, of course, there's no extenuation for deception. Therefore, if you insist on putting it that way--if--if it has made the whole thing intolerable to you, it seems to me that perhaps I ought, don't you know, to release you from your obligations----"

She looked at him. She knew that he had understood the meaning and the depth of her repugnance. She did not know that such understanding is rare in the circ.u.mstances, nor could she see that in itself it was a revelation of a certain capacity for the "goodness" she had once believed in. But she did see that she was being treated with a delicacy and consideration she had not expected of this man with the strange devil.

It touched her in spite of her repugnance. It made her own that she had expected nothing short of it until yesterday.

"_Do_ you insist?" he went on. "After what I've told you?"

"After what you've told me--no. I'm ready to believe that you did not mean to deceive me."

"Doesn't that make any difference?" he asked tenderly.

"Yes. It makes some difference--in my judgment of you."

"You mean you're not--as Edith would say--going to be too hard on me?"

"I hope," said Anne, "I should never be too hard on any one."

"Then," he inquired, eager to be released from the strain of a most insupportable situation, "what are we going to do next?"

He had a.s.sumed that the supreme issue had been decided by a polite evasion; and his question had been innocent of all momentous meaning. He merely wished to know how they were going to spend the day that was before them, since they had to spend days, and spend them together. But Anne's tense mind contemplated nothing short of the supreme issue that, for her, was not to be evaded, nor yet to be decided hastily.

"Will you leave me alone," she said, "to think it over? Will you give me three hours?"

He stared and turned pale; for, this time, he understood.