It ain't any wonder
you made the mistake."
"It wa'n't that," returned Sylvia. "I dunno what the reason was; it
don't make any difference. I can't never go to meetin' again."
"I sha'n't tell anybody," said Barney; "I sha'n't ever speak of it to
any human being."
Sylvia turned on him with sudden fierceness. "You had better not,"
said she, "when you're doin' jest the same as Richard Alger yourself,
an' you're makin' Charlotte sit an' watch an' suffer for nothin' at
all, jest as he makes me. You had better not tell of it, Barney
Thayer, when it was all due to your awful will that won't let you
give in to anybody, in the first place, an' when you are so much like
Richard Alger yourself that it's no wonder that anybody that knows
him body and soul, as I do, took you for him. You had better not
tell."
Again Barney seemed to see before his eyes that image of himself as
Richard Alger, and he could no more change it than he could change
his own image in the looking-glass. He said not another word, but
carried the dipper of water back to the kitchen, returned with the
candle, setting it gingerly on the white mantel-shelf between a vase
of dried flowers and a mottle-backed shell, and went out of the
house. Sylvia did not speak again; but he heard her moan as he closed
the door, and it seemed to him that he heard her as he went down the
road, although he knew that he could not.
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