g
you what you have n't dared tell yourself."

"Things I mustn't tell myself!" she cried. "Things I must n't hear."

"What I don't understand," he said, "is why Covington did n't tell you
all this himself. He must have known."

"He knew nothing," she broke in. "I was a mere incident in his life. We
met in Paris quite by accident when he happened to have an idle week. He
was alone and I was alone, and he saved me from a disagreeable situation.
Then, because he still had nothing in particular to do and I had nothing
in particular to do, he suggested this further arrangement. We were each
considering nothing but our own comfort. We wanted nothing more. It was
to escape just such complications as this--to escape responsibility, as I
told you--that we--we married. He was only a boy, Peter, and knew no
better. But I was a woman, and should have known. And I came to know!
That was my punishment."

"He came to know, too," said Peter.

"He might have come to know," she corrected breathlessly. "There were
moments when I dared think so. If I had kept myself true--oh, Peter,
these are terrible things to say!"

She buried her face in her hands again--a picture of total and abject
misery. Her frame shook with sobs that she was fighting hard to suppress.

Peter placed his hand gently upon her shoulder.

"There, little woman," he tried to comfort. "Cry a minute. It will do
you good."

"I have n't even the right to cry," she sobbed.

"You _must_ cry," he said. "You have n't let yourself go enough. That's
been the whole trouble."

He was silent a moment, patting her back, with his eyes leveled out of
the window as if trying to look beyond the horizon, beyond that to the
secret places of eternity.

"You have n't let yourself go enough," he repeated, almost like a seer.
"You have tried to force your destiny from its appointed course. You
have, and Covington has, and I have. We have tried to force things that
were not meant to be and to balk things that were meant to be. That's
because we've been selfish--all three of us. We've each thought of
ourself alone--of our own petty little happiness of the moment. That's
deadly. It warps the vision. It--it makes people stone-blind.

"I understand now. When you went away from me, it was myself alone I
considered. I was hurt and worried, and made a martyr of myself. If I
had thought more of you, all would have been well. This time I think
I--I have thought