"I wonder what's become of her?"
"I think I wouldn't think about her at all to-night," I answered.
He loosened his hand, letting the paper fall into the fire.
"My God!" he cried vehemently, "when I think of all the wrong I have
done--the irreparable, ever-widening ruin I have perhaps brought into the
world--O God! spare me a long life that I may make amends. Every hour,
every minute of it shall be devoted to your service."
As he stood there, with his eager boyish eyes upraised, a light seemed to
fall upon his face and illumine it. I had pushed the photograph back to
him, and it lay upon the table before him. He knelt and pressed his lips
to it.
"With your help, my darling, and His," he murmured.
The next morning he was married. She was a well-meaning girl, though her
piety, as is the case with most people, was of the negative order; and
her antipathy to things evil much stronger than her sympathy with things
good. For a longer time than I had expected she kept him
straight--perhaps a little too straight. But at last there came the
inevitable relapse.
I called upon him, in answer to an excited message, and found him in the
depths of despair. It was the old story, human weakness, combined with
lamentable lack of the most ordinary precautions against being found out.
Pages:
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282