Van Berg, before we part, answer me one question. Have you
deliberately and selfishly intended to do wrong, or to wrong any
one?"
"No," he promptly replied meeting, her searching look unhesitatingly.
Then, with an impatient gesture, he added: "But no one will ever
believe it."
"I believe it," she said with a reassuring smile.
"You? You of all others? But you are talking at random, Miss
Mayhew. When you learn the truth you will look and speak very
differently. And you shall learn it now. You once told me of a
wicked and desperate purpose to which you were driven by the wrong
of others. Your sin seems to me a deed of light compared with
the act I have been led to commit, under the guidance of my proud
reason, my superior judgement, my cool, well-balanced nature--infernally
cool it was, indeed! Pardon me, but I am beside myself with rage
and self-loathing. True, I have not been intentionally false,
but there are circumstances in which folly, weakness, and stupid
blundering are nearly as bad, and the results quite as bad. What
can you say of the man who pays open suit and makes a distinct offer
and pledge to a lady, and the retreats from that suit and breaks
that pledge, and through no fault whatever in the lady herself?
What can you say of that man when the lady is a poor and orphaned
girl, whom any one with a spark of honor would shield with his life,
but that he is a base, fickle wretch, who deserves the contempt of
all good men and women, and that he ought to be--as he shall be--a
vagabond on the face of the earth?"
Ida had buried her face in her hands as she learned how thoroughly
Van Berg had committed himself to Miss Burton, and the artist
concluded, abruptly: "One thing is certain, he has no right to be
here.
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