"
"Consider then, Elsie, what it would mean for me. I should not see my
children again. They would not want to recognize me. I should bring a
terrible sorrow upon them, and I am very fond of them."
"Would none of them try to understand it, to forgive it?" asked Elsie.
"Not one of them, I fear. Even were it only on account of their mother,
whom they adore. And remember that, beside my children, I should also
lose my position. My wife ? I mean Lucia is wealthy, but I am not ?"
"Would your health suffer if you were poorer?" asked Elsie, with naive
directness and perfect sobriety, though the question almost sounded
ironical to me. In a very impolitic fashion I had again reserved my
weakest argument for the last.
"Not that! Not that! ? but perhaps I am too much spoilt ? I should have
the whole world against me ? and I don't know if all that ?"
I felt that I was going wrong, thus I would end by myself casting a
doubt upon the self-sacrificing power of my love. Elsie helped me out
of it.
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