re-enter the career I formerly abandoned in disgust. I have been trying to persuade myself of late, and had almost succeeded in so doing, that I could walk firmly on the slippery path where so many have stumbled before me; that I need never descend—like H and F to become, for pay, the accomplice after the fact of the cowardly assassin, the hired tool and ally of the thief or swindler, bribed by a share of the plunder.
"You see, my dear fellow, I am now trying to persuade myself that what has happened is all for the best. In the presence of unattainable grapes, how apt we are to seek comfort in the assurance that they would most assuredly have proved unwholesome! You may imagine how sore I feel when I write such stuff as this. The tumble, though not unforeseen, is none the less severe. I still feel somewhat stunned, and inclined to talk incoherently. Yet I do not regret this new experience. It is worth some suffering to have known a really noble woman. It has revealed to me a previously unsuspected world of possibilities and deals. I shall get over this in time. Other fellows have; and so, no doubt, shall I, though at present it seems impossible,—nay, scarcely desirable. I am not such a fool as to suppose that there are not others similar, at least, to Edith Alston. I have to thank her for opening my eyes to that divine possibility. Perhaps, when I return cured, I may, by diligent search—But enough of this.
"When, a few days ago, you mentioned to me, for the first time, Miss Alston's name, and made me a confidant of your troubles, you little suspected how closely the matter concerned your auditor. Had you not been so completely absorbed in the contemplation of your own griefs, you could hardly have failed to remark the disturbance, or, rather, consternation, awakened in me by what I so unexpectedly heard.
"After you left, I tried to face the situation squarely, Could I, or ought I, to withdraw without a struggle? No: I was too far gone for that. Besides, was it not possible that—The possibility suggested was sweet indeed, but soon grew faint in the cool light of sober reflection. The Edith Alston known to me was not the one to plight her troth without giving her heart, nor, having given it, readily to forget. It was due, however, both to myself and to her, that I should know this for certain.
