“You do not know me,” I said. “When
you have read those papers, my own diary and my husband’s
also, which I have typed, you will know me better.
I have not faltered in giving every thought of my
own heart in this cause. But, of course, you
do not know me, yet, and I must not expect you to
trust me so far.”
He is certainly a man of noble nature. Poor
dear Lucy was right about him. He stood up and
opened a large drawer, in which were arranged in order
a number of hollow cylinders of metal covered with
dark wax, and said,
“You are quite right. I did not trust
you because I did not know you. But I know you
now, and let me say that I should have known you long
ago. I know that Lucy told you of me. She
told me of you too. May I make the only atonement
in my power? Take the cylinders and hear them.
The first half-dozen of them are personal to me, and
they will not horrify you. Then you will know
me better. Dinner will by then be ready.
In the meantime I shall read over some of these documents,
and shall be better able to understand certain things.”
He carried the phonograph himself up to my sitting
room and adjusted it for me. Now I shall learn
something pleasant, I am sure. For it will tell
me the other side of a true love episode of which I
know one side already.
29 September.—I was so absorbed in that
wonderful diary of Jonathan Harker and that other
of his wife that I let the time run on without thinking.
Mrs. Harker was not down when the maid came to announce
dinner, so I said, “She is possibly tired.
Let dinner wait an hour,” and I went on with
my work. I had just finished Mrs. Harker’s
diary, when she came in. She looked sweetly
pretty, but very sad, and her eyes were flushed with
crying. This somehow moved me much. Of
late I have had cause for tears, God knows!
But the relief of them was denied me, and now the
sight of those sweet eyes, brightened by recent tears,
went straight to my heart. So I said as gently
as I could, “I greatly fear I have distressed
you.”
“Oh, no, not distressed me,” she replied.
“But I have been more touched than I can say
by your grief. That is a wonderful machine,
but it is cruelly true. It told me, in its very
tones, the anguish of your heart. It was like
a soul crying out to Almighty God. No one must
hear them spoken ever again! See, I have tried
to be useful. I have copied out the words on
my typewriter, and none other need now hear your heart
beat, as I did.”
“No one need ever know, shall ever know,”
I said in a low voice. She laid her hand on
mine and said very gravely, “Ah, but they must!”
“Must! But why?” I asked.
