But there is something which I
wish to say to you first."
"Well?"
"You are very, very dear to me now--as you are--but you are not the man
I loved years ago. You are a very different person indeed. Sometimes I
am almost afraid of you.
"You have no cause to be," he said. "Indeed, you have no cause to be.
So far as you are concerned I have never changed. I am the same man."
She took one of his hands in hers.
"Philip," she said, "you must not think hardly of me. You must not
think of me as simply afflicted with the usual woman's curiosity. I am
not curious at all. I would rather not know. But remember that for
nearly twenty years you passed out of my life. You have come back again
wonderfully altered. You do not wish to keep the story of those years
for ever a sort of Bluebeards chamber in our lives?"
"Not I," he answered. "I would have you do as I have done, rip them out
page and chapter, annihilate them utterly. What have they to do with
the life before us? To you they would seem evil enough, to me they are
thronged with horrible memories, with memories which, could I take them
with me, would poison heaven itself.
Pages:
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193