And that is what he did. He told her All; and wept upon
her bosom; wept, and moaned, and begged for her forgiveness.
It was a profound shock, and she staggered under the blow, but he
was her own, the core of her heart, the blessing of her eyes,
her all in all, she could deny him nothing, and she forgave him.
She felt that he could never again be quite to her what he had
been before; she knew that he could only repent, and not reform;
yet all morally defaced and decayed as he was, was he not her own,
her very own, the idol of her deathless worship? She said she
was his serf, his slave, and she opened her yearning heart and took
him in.
CHAPTER VII
One Sunday afternoon some time after this they were sailing the
summer seas in their dream yacht, and reclining in lazy luxury under
the awning of the after-deck. There was silence, for each was busy
with his own thoughts. These seasons of silence had insensibly
been growing more and more frequent of late; the old nearness and
cordiality were waning. Sally's terrible revelation had done its work;
Aleck had tried hard to drive the memory of it out of her mind,
but it would not go, and the shame and bitterness of it were
poisoning her gracious dream life. She could see now (on Sundays)
that her husband was becoming a bloated and repulsive Thing.
She could not close her eyes to this, and in these days she
no longer looked at him, Sundays, when she could help it.
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