"Are you not going to marry him, Isabel?"
"No, I am not going to marry him. I am never going to marry him."
She stretched out her hand helplessly to him. He would not take it
and it fell to her side: at that moment he did not dare. But of
what use is it to have kept faith with high ideals through trying
years if they do not reward us at last with strength in the crises
of character? No doubt they rewarded him now: later he reached
down and took her hand and held it tenderly.
"You must not go away. You must be reconciled, to him. Otherwise
it will sadden your whole summer. And it will sadden his."
"Sadden, the whole summer," she repeated, "a summer? It will
sadden a life. If there is eternity, it will sadden eternity."
"Is it so serious?"
"Yes, it is as serious as anything, could be."
After a while she sat up wearily and turned her face to him for the
first time.
"Cannot you help me?" she asked. "I do not believe I can bear
this. I do not believe I can bear it."
Perhaps it is the doctors who hear that tone oftenest--little
wonder that they are men so often with sad or with calloused faces.
"What can I do?"
"I do not know what you can do. But cannot you do something? You
were the only person in the world that I could go to. I did not
think I could ever come to you; but I had to come. Help me."
He perceived that commonplace counsel would be better than no
counsel at all.
"Isabel," he asked, "are you suffering because you have wronged
Rowan or because you think he has wronged you?"
"No, no, no," she cried, covering her face with her hands, "I have
not wronged him! I have not wronged any one! He has wronged me!"
"Did he ever wrong you before?"
"No, he never wronged me before. But this covers everything--the
whole past."
"Have you ever had any great trouble before, Isabel?"
"No, I have never had any great trouble before. At times in my
life I may have thought I had, but now I know."
"You do not need to be told that sooner or later all of us have
troubles that we think we cannot bear."
She shook her head wearily: "It does not do any good to think of
that! It does not help me in the least!"
"But it does help if there is any one to whom we can tell our
troubles."
"I cannot tell mine."
"Cannot you tell me?"
"No, I believe I wish you knew, but I could not tell you. No, I do
not even wish you to know."
"Have you seen Kate?"
She covered her face wit
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