"Suzette!" he said, "my early sin; do you come back as well with the
turning of my hairs? Has the first passion a shadow long as forever? Why
have we met?"
"Not of my seeking was this meeting, Ralph. Speak softly, for my husband
sleeps, and he is old like thee and me. If my face is an accusation, let
my lips be forgiveness. The love of you made my life dutiful; the loss
of you saddened my days, but it was the sadness of religion! I sinned no
more, and sought my father's fields, and delayed, with my hand purified
by his blessing, the residue of his sands of life. I made my years good
to my neighbors, the sick, the bereaved. I met the temptations of the
young with a truer story than pleasure tells, and when I married it was
with the prelude of my lost years related and forgiven. With children's
faces the earnestness and beauty of life returned; for this, for more,
for all, may your reward be bountiful!"
There is no curse like the dream of old age. Ralph Flare felt, with the
sudden whitening of each separate hair, the sudden remembrance of each
separate folly; and the moments of grief he had wrung from the little
girl of the Quartier Latin revived like one's mean acts seen through
others' eyes.
"Pardon you, child, Suzette?" he said; "to me you were more than I
hoped, more than I wished.
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