August
18.
I have done it. I wrote to Paul
to-day. I knew I must tell him by letter,
because I could never make him believe it face to
face. I was afraid I could not even do it by
letter. I suppose a clever woman easily
could, but I am so stupid. I wrote a great
many letters and tore them up, because I felt sure
they wouldn’t convince Paul. At last I
got one that I thought would do. I knew
I must make it seems as if I were very frivolous
and heartless, or he would never believe. I
spelled some words wrong and put in some mistakes
of grammar on purpose. I told him I had
just been flirting with him, and that I had another
fellow at home I liked better. I said fellow
because I knew it would disgust him. I said that
it was only because he was rich that I was tempted
to marry him.
I thought would my heart would break
while I was writing those dreadful falsehoods.
But it was for his sake, because I must not spoil
his life. His mother told me I would be a millstone
around his neck. I love Paul so much that I would
do anything rather than be that. It would
be easy to die for him, but I don’t see
how I can go on living. I think my letter
will convince Paul.
I suppose it convinced Paul, because there was no
further entry in the little brown book. When
we had finished it the tears were running down both
our faces.
“Oh, poor, dear Miss Emily,” sobbed Diana.
“I’m so sorry I ever thought her funny
and meddlesome.”
“She was good and strong and brave,” I
said. “I could never have been as unselfish
as she was.”
I thought of Whittier’s lines,
“The outward, wayward
life we see
The hidden springs we may
not know.”
At the back of the little brown book we found a faded
water-color sketch of a young girl—such
a slim, pretty little thing, with big blue eyes and
lovely, long, rippling golden hair. Paul Osborne’s
name was written in faded ink across the corner.
We put everything back in the box. Then we sat
for a long time by my window in silence and thought
of many things, until the rainy twilight came down
and blotted out the world.
The warm June sunshine was coming down through the
trees, white with the virginal bloom of apple-blossoms,
and through the shining panes, making a tremulous
mosaic upon Mrs. Eben Andrews’ spotless kitchen
floor. Through the open door, a wind, fragrant
from long wanderings over orchards and clover meadows,
drifted in, and, from the window, Mrs. Eben and her
guest could look down over a long, misty valley sloping
to a sparkling sea.
Mrs. Jonas Andrews was spending the afternoon with
her sister-in-law. She was a big, sonsy woman,
with full-blown peony cheeks and large, dreamy, brown
eyes. When she had been a slim, pink-and-white
girl those eyes had been very romantic. Now they
were so out of keeping with the rest of her appearance
as to be ludicrous.
