Fantasy Football Challenge - Football Fanatics Library

Fantasy Football Challenge - Library of Books for Football Fanatics

Fantasy Football Challenge presents
The Mettle of the Pasture

30 of 69

it will sadden your whole summer. And it will sadden his." "Sadden, the whole summer," she repeated, "a summer? It will sadden a life. If there is eternity, it will sadden eternity." "Is it so serious?" "Yes, it is as serious as anything, could be." After a while she sat up wearily and turned her face to him for the first time. "Cannot you help me?" she asked. "I do not believe I can bear this. I do not believe I can bear it." Perhaps it is the doctors who hear that tone oftenest--little wonder that they are men so often with sad or with calloused faces. "What can I do?" "I do not know what you can do. But cannot you do something? You were the only person in the world that I could go to. I did not think I could ever come to you; but I had to come. Help me." He perceived that commonplace counsel would be better than no counsel at all. "Isabel," he asked, "are you suffering because you have wronged Rowan or because you think he has wronged you?" "No, no, no," she cried, covering her face with her hands, "I have not wronged him! I have not wronged any one! He has wronged me!" "Did he ever wrong you before?" "No, he never wronged me before. But this covers everything--the whole past." "Have you ever had any great trouble before, Isabel?" "No, I have never had any great trouble before. At times in my life I may have thought I had, but now I know." "You do not need to be told that sooner or later all of us have troubles that we think we cannot bear." She shook her head wearily: "It does not do any good to think of that! It does not help me in the least!" "But it does help if there is any one to whom we can tell our troubles." "I cannot tell mine." "Cannot you tell me?" "No, I believe I wish you knew, but I could not tell you. No, I do not even wish you to know." "Have you seen Kate?" She covered her face with her hands again: "No, no, no," she cried, "not Kate!" Then she looked up at him with eyes suddenly kindling: "Have you heard what Kate's life has been since her marriage?" "We have all heard, I suppose." "She has never spoken a word against him--not even to me from whom she never had a secret. How could I go to her about Rowan? Even if she had confided in me, I could not tell her this." "If you are going away, change of scene will help you to forget it." "No, it will help me to remember." "There is prayer, Isabel." "I know there is prayer. But prayer does not do any good. It has nothing to do with this." "Enter as soon as possible into the pleasures of the people you are to visit." "I cannot! I do not wish for pleasure," "Isabel," he said at last, "forgive him." "I cannot forgive him." "Have you tried?" "No, I cannot try. If I forgave him, it would only be a change in me: it would not change him: it would not undo what he has done." "Do you know the necessity of self-sacrifice?" "But how can I sacrifice what is best in me without lowering myself? Is it a virtue in a woman to throw away what she holds to be as highest?" "Remember," he said, returning to the point, "that, if you forgive him, you become changed yourself. You no longer see what he has done as you see it now. That is the beauty of forgiveness: it enables us better to understand those whom we have forgiven. Perhaps it will enable you to put yourself in his place." She put her hands to her eyes with a shudder: "You do not know what you are saying," she cried, and rose. "Then trust it all to time," he said finally, "that is best! Time alone solves so much. Wait! Do not act! Think and feel as little as possible. Give time its merciful chance. I'll come to see you." They had moved toward the door. She drew off her glove which she was putting on and laid her hand once more in his. "Time can change nothing. I have decided." As she was going down the steps to the carriage, she turned and came back. "Do not come to see me! I shall come to you to say good-by. It is better for you not to come to the house just now. I might not be able to see you." Isabel had the carriage driven to the Osborns'. The house was situated in a pleasant street of delightful residences. It had been newly built on an old foundation as a bridal present to Kate from her father. She had furnished it with a young wife's pride and delight and she had lined it throughout with thoughts of incommunicable tenderness about the life history just beginning. Now, people driving past (and there were few in town who did not know) looked at it as already a prison and a doom. Kate was sitting in the hall with some work in her lap. Seeing Isabel she sprang up and met her at the door, greeting her as though she herself were the happiest of wives. "Do you know how long it has been since you were here?" she exclaimed chidingly. "I had not realized how soon young married people can be forgotten and pushed aside." "Forget you, dearest! I have never thought of you so much as since I was here last." "Ah," thought Kate to herself, "she has heard. She has begun to feel sorry for me and has begun to stay away as people avoid the unhappy." But the two friends, each smiling into the other's eyes, their arms around each other, passed into the parlors. "Now that you are here at last, I shall keep you," said Kate, rising from the seat they had taken. "I will send the carriage home. George cannot be here to lunch and we shall have it all to ourselves as we used to when we were girls together." "No," exclaimed Isabel, drawing her down into the seat again, "I cannot stay. I had only a few moments and drove by just to speak to you, just to tell you how much I love you." Kate's face changed and she dropped her eyes. "Is so little of me so much nowadays?" she asked, feeling as though the friendship of a lifetime were indeed beginning to fail her along with other things. "No, no, no," cried Isabel. "I wish we could never be separated." She rose quickly and went over to the piano and began to turn over the music. "It seems so long since I heard any music. What has become of it? Has it all gone out of life? I feel as though there were none any more." Kate came over and looked at one piece of music after another irresolutely. "I have not touched the piano for weeks." She sat down and her fingers wandered forcedly through a few

30 of 69 pages. Go to page:

Go to this Book's Directory Page