"
"Yet you know well you have gifts, though you have made sad mistakes
here. Do not think it was your personality, your looks that induced me
to think of you, to listen to you. When Mr. Calhoun told me the truth,
and gave me a letter he had written to me--"
"A letter--to you?"
There was surprise in the governor's voice--surprise and chagrin, for the
thing had moved him powerfully. "Yes, a letter to me which he never
meant me to have. It was a kind of diary of his heart, and it was
written even while I was landing on the island on Christmas Day. It was
the most terribly truthful thing, opening his whole soul to the girl whom
he had always loved, but from whom he was separated by a thing not the
less tragical because it was merely technical. He gave it me to read,
and when I read it I saw there was no place for me in the world except
a convent or marriage. The convent could not be, for I was no Catholic,
and marriage seemed the only thing possible. That day you came I saw
only one thing to do--one mad, hopeless thing to do."
"Mad and hopeless!" burst out Lord Mallow. "How so? Your very reason
shows that it was sane, well founded in the philosophy of the heart.
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