He had with his own hands
dug up this little hoard, brought to light--that is to within reach
of the dim day constituted by their discretions and privacies--the
object of value the hiding-place of which he had, after putting it
into the ground himself, so strangely, so long forgotten. The rare
luck of his having again just stumbled on the spot made him
indifferent to any other question; he would doubtless have devoted
more time to the odd accident of his lapse of memory if he hadn't
been moved to devote so much to the sweetness, the comfort, as he
felt, for the future, that this accident itself had helped to keep
fresh. It had never entered into his plan that any one should
"know", and mainly for the reason that it wasn't in him to tell any
one. That would have been impossible, for nothing but the
amusement of a cold world would have waited on it. Since, however,
a mysterious fate had opened his mouth betimes, in spite of him, he
would count that a compensation and profit by it to the utmost.
That the right person SHOULD know tempered the asperity of his
secret more even than his shyness had permitted him to imagine; and
May Bartram was clearly right, because--well, because there she
was.
Pages:
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41