I heard it as an accompaniment to
his voice.

His eyes never once strayed from her face.

"You think you are to be pitied," he said. "You are wrong! No one who
has not sinned against another needs pity. I meant you no harm.
Fate--my temperament, your immobility, the very gifts that have made
me what I am were to blame--if blame there were. Every one of us must
live out his life, according to his nature. I, as well as you!

"When, on this very spot where we last parted, you told me that you
loved her, I swear to you, if need be, that I rejoiced. I was glad
that she would have you to make the future smooth for her. Later I
grew to envy you. It was for your safety, as well as mine and hers,
that I decided to see neither of you again until she had been some
time your wife. No word of love, no confidence of any kind, had ever
passed between us. When I wrote you that I should not be here to see
you married, and when not even your reproaches could move me, I had
already engaged my passage on a sailing ship bound for the Azores. I
had planned to put a long uncertain voyage between you and any
possibility that I might mar your chances for happiness, for the
nearer the day came, the more--in spite of myself--I resented it!

"My good intentions were thwarted by--Fate.

"For some reason, forgotten and unimportant, the Captain deferred
lifting anchor for a whole week. I called myself unpretty names for
thinking that I could not even see her without danger. I despised
myself for the judgment that accused me of being such a scamp as to
think I would do anything to rob her of the protection and safety you
could give her, and I could not, and an egoist for being possessed
with the idea that I could if I would.

"Suddenly I felt quite sure of myself.

"Yet I had meant to see her without being seen, when I hurried so
unexpectedly down here on your wedding night. I fancied I only longed
to see what a lovely bride she would make--she who as a child, a girl,
a maiden, had been in your eyes the most exquisite creature you had
ever known; she whom I had avoided for years, because I, of all men,
could least afford to take a place in her life! I longed to see those
eyes, still so pure, under her bridal veil.

"I came in secret! I saw her--and all prudence fled out of me, leaving
but one instinct.

"Was it my fault that, alone, she fled from the house? That, with her
veil thrown over her arm, she ran directly by me, like a sprite in t