“I heard and saw this afternoon, when you two talked together yonder, and I knew then what made you so glad to go away, so loath to come back. You have had a secret as well as I.”
“I was never sure until to-day. Do not speak of that: it is enough to know it, and forget it if we can. Tell your secret: it has burdened you so long, you will be glad to end it. He would have done so, but I would not let him.”
“I thought it would be hard to tell you, yet now my fault looks so small and innocent beside his, I can confess without much shame or fear.”
But it was not easy; for he had gone so far into a deeper, darker world that night, it was difficult to come to lesser sins and lighter thoughts. As he hesitated for a word, his eye fell upon the purple-covered book, and he saw a way to shorten his
