The color flooded Mary's face. "Fail him?" she faltered.
"Yes. When he first came to me, there were your letters. He used to
read bits of them aloud, and I could see inspiration in them for him.
Then he stopped reading them to me, and they seemed to bring heaviness
with them--I can't tell you how unhappy he was until he began to make
his work fill his life. Do you mind telling me what made the change in
you, my dear?"
Mary gazed into the fire, the blood still in her face.
"Cousin Patty, did you know his wife?"
"Yes. Is it because of her, Mary?"
"Yes. After Roger went away, I saw her picture. Colin had painted it.
And, Cousin Patty, it seemed the face of such a little--saint."
"Yet Roger told you his story?"
"Yes."
"And you didn't believe him?"
"Oh, I don't know what to believe."
"I see," but Cousin Patty's manner was remote.
Mary slipped down to the stool at Cousin Patty's feet, and brought her
clear eyes to the level of the little lady's. "Dear Cousin Patty," she
implored, "if you only know how I want to believe in Roger Poole."
Cousin Patty melted. "My dear," she said with decision, "I'm going to
tell you everything."
And now woman's heart spoke to woman's heart. "I visited them in the
first year of their marriage. I wanted to love his wife, and at first
she seemed charming. But I hadn't been there a week before I was
puzzling over her. She was made of different clay from Roger. In the
intimacy of that home I discovered that she wasn't--a lady--not in our
nice old-fashioned sense of good manners, and good morals. She said
things that you and I couldn't say, and she did things. I felt the
catastrophe in the air long before it came. But I couldn't warn Roger.
I just had to let him find out. I wasn't there when the blow fell; but
I'll tell you this, that Roger may have been a quixotic idiot in the
eyes of the world, but if he failed it was because he was a dreamer,
and an idealist, not a coward and a shirk." Her eyes were blazing.
"Oh, if you could hear what some people said of him, Mary."
Mary could fancy what they had said.
"Oh, Cousin Patty, Cousin Patty," she cried, "Do you think he will ever
forgive me? I have let such people talk to me, and I have listened!"