t
hell I have been walking since the day I went near to killing Clem.
You saved me that once, and then you turned and left me. I wanted you--
no, not to marry me! When a man fears himself he thinks no more of
affection. I wanted you, I craved for you, to save me--to save me again
and again, and as often as the madness mastered me. A word from you would
have made me docile as a child. I should have done you no hurt.
On your walks and about your lodging at night I have dogged you for that
word, afraid to show myself, afraid to knock and demand it. By this time
I had discovered you were my cousin. 'Blood is thicker than water'--over
and over I told myself this. 'Sooner or later,' I said, 'the voice in our
blood will whisper to her, and she will turn and help my need.' But you
never turned, and why? Because you were in love, and if fear is selfish,
love is selfish too!"

He paused for breath, eyeing her with a gloomy, bitter smile.
"Oh, there's no harm in my knowing your secret," he went on. "I'm past
hating Tom Trevarthen, and past all jealousy. All I ever asked was that
he should spare you to help me--a cup of cold water for a tongue in hell;
I didn't want your love. But that's where the selfishness of love comes
in. It can't spare even what it doesn't need for itself. It wants the
whole world to be happy; but when the unhappy cry to it, it doesn't hear."

Hester stood up, her eyes brimming. "You are right," she said, "I did not
hear. I never guessed at all. Tell me now that I can help."

"It is too late," he answered. "I no longer want your help."

"Surely to-day, if ever, you need your neighbours' pity and their
prayers?"

He laughed aloud. "That shows how little you understand! You and my
precious neighbours think of me as brooding here, mourning for my lost
boy. I tell you I am glad--yes, glad! _This_ is no part of God's
punishment! It was the future I feared: He has taken it from me.
I can suffer at ease now, knowing the end. See now, I have confessed to
you the wrong I did that blind child, and the confession has eased me.
I could not have confessed it yesterday--the burden of living grows
lighter, you perceive. I don't repent; it doesn't seem to me that I have
any use for repentance. If what I have done deserves punishment in
another world, I must suffer it; but I know it cannot be half what I have
suffered of late. No, cousin, I need you no longer. There is no sting to
rankle, now