gs and goings of those whom one should
know, as Mrs. Bannister might put it, they seemed aliens, manikins that
moved in a stage world. As such I tried to think of them, for it was
best, but I had as well set myself to efface my memory.

The last chapter of my own story was written by unknown hands. The
epilogue remained, in which I was to go on seeking what contentment I
could find in action. But my whole story was not written on these
flimsy pages. It was before me always and always I was turning to it,
always asking myself how it would have run had this not happened or had
that occurred. Studying it over and over again in my room at night and
on my long walks up-town, I found that I could not think of Penelope
Blight as an alien creature for whose happiness I had no longer any
care. What of her story which was in the writing? Did she know this
Talcott whom she had chosen to fill its last pages? She knew him as I
knew him first, as a quiet, gentlemanly man with pleasant manners. Was
it not her right to know him as I knew him now, as a drunken brawler,
who in his cups had betrayed the unworthy motive of his devotion?
These questions troubled me for many days. I was not a prude. I knew
that all men have their foibles, that many great men have over-indulged
in liquor, that a man's whole character is not to be damned by a single
slip. I knew that did all women see the men whom they choose for
marriage as others see them we should have a plague of spinsters. But
I feared for Penelope Blight. This was not because Talcott was worse
than the mass of his fellows, but because the best of his fellows was
none too good for her. But how could I go to her and declare that
Talcott when drunk had avowed a purpose to marry her for her millions?
It seemed the part of a tattler. The world would say that I acted from
jealousy. Indeed, it was hard at times to convince myself that
jealousy was not the basis of my fear for her. Yet I felt that I must
save her from a disillusionment which might come too late. Were her
father here that disillusionment would be speedy; but he was far away,
and always his last words were with me, as he spoke them that night in
the street: "You will take care of Penelope, won't you, boy?"

I had promised that. It was simply repeating my boyhood promise. And
now I kept asking myself if I was not forgetting that trust when I kept
silent because I feared in my pride to place myself in the light