Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/206

 der. "I know," he said, abjectly. "I'm sorry. I—can't help it." He choked again with tears. "You—you," he gulped, "you don't understand." "No," I said. "I'll be hanged if I do. How long has this been going on?"

"Always," he wept. "Always. Ever since I can remember."

"What? Why, you're crazy! Here in Centerbrook!"

"Yes. Nobody knew. Not even her family—or mine."

And then the whole story began to come out pell-mell, every which way, wrong end first, the middle nowhere, and all confused with mixed emotions, tears and young despair and disorderly outbursts of vituperation against himself, Centerbrook, his ill luck, her family, and everything and everybody but the girl herself. For a long time I could not believe him. Then, when I believed I could not understand, for much of it he did not understand himself and could not make credible. But what a situation! With a little of the pathos of actuality taken out and its place occupied by romantic motive and symphonic "bunk," what a situation for a fictionist! Well!

They had met years before, as children, in circumstances that were just absurd. He had been chopping kindling in the woodshed with his pockets