Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/193

190 Roger," it ran, "I learned this afternoon the secret of all these years,—too late for our happiness. I have been strangely blind; you have been too forbearing,—generous where you should have been strictly just. I never dreamed of what this day would bring. Now, I must leave you; I can do nothing else. This is no time to thank you for what you have been to me, but I shall live to do so yet. Dear Roger, get married, and send me your children to teach. I shall live by teaching. I have a family, you know; I go to New York to-night. I write this on my knees, imploring you to be happy. One of these days, when I have learned to be myself again, we shall be better friends than ever. I beg you, I beg you, not to follow me."

Mrs. Keith sat a long time with her host. For the first time in her knowledge of him she saw Roger violent,—violent with horror and self-censure and vain imprecation. "Take her at her word," she said; "don't follow her. Let her knock against the world a little, and she will have you yet."

This philosophy seemed to Roger too stoical by half; to sit at home and let Nora knock against the world was more than he could undertake. "Whether she will have me or not," he said, "I must bring her back. I am morally responsible for her. Good God! think of her afloat in that horrible city with that rascal of a half-cousin—her 'family' she calls him!—for a pilot!" He took, of course, the first train to New York. How to proceed, where to look, was a hard question; but to linger and waver was agony. He was haunted, as he went, with dreadful visions of what might have befallen