It would be easier to sit in judgment on oneself, did straight and
simple purpose lead to a single act. My purpose was clear enough; I
meant to give him his liberty, I knew that it was my duty to do so,
but the blood of the heart was master.
Had I been physically strong at the time, had not many weeks of
doubt and misery affected me bodily as well as mentally, I might
perhaps have had the strength to fulfil my intentions. I say
perhaps; we cannot tell what might have been. And it is particularly
in such cases as mine, when body and spirit are alike affected, that
we are the most easily thrown out of balance by unforeseen
influences, by some sudden wave of feeling, by the mood of another,
by the interference of time and place.
The day after I made the last entry in my journal, I did not see
Gabriel until the evening. Constance had a headache, my poor sweet,
and wished to be alone; so I, too, was alone nearly all day. And all
day long I rehearsed the scene to come, gathering all my strength
together, telling him in my imagination what I had to tell, in
twenty different ways. When evening came, my heart was dead. I felt
absolutely nothing. I remember singing as I made myself tidy for
supper, and being so offended with myself for doing so that I left
off, in order to simulate, at least, a depression I no longer felt.
Gabriel supped with us, and we were exceedingly merry; not that I
was necessarily merry, not being sad,--indeed, I was neither the one
nor the other, but my heart was dead, and I let my body do as it
would. I remember looking hard at Gabriel once, and saying to
myself, "After all, he will admire me for this much more than I
deserve; after all, I do not love him so much as I imagined."
After supper I played some while on the piano. Gabriel and Constance
sat very far apart, but I should not have felt it had they sat
together. At ten o'clock I left off.
"Gabriel," said I, "I shall turn you out a little earlier than usual
to-night, because I want to walk as far as the park with you."
Then, for a second, feeling returned to me; there came a little
flutter of fear within me, the same I sometimes felt in childhood
when I had told a lie and, wanting to confess it, stood at my
mother's door saying, "May I come in?"
There was no moon, but the sky was not dark. We walked through the
garden in silence; once or twice I contrived to force up to my lips,
by great effort, the words I meant to speak; but then my heart beat
so fearfully that I felt my courage fail me, and I said to myself,
time after time, "Presently will do." It was not active love for
Gabriel that checked me, merely the actual physical fear that I
suppose most people experience when about to give forth words of
great import.
But just as we reached the shrubbery, I said:
"Gabriel, I have something to tell you."
"And so have I," said he, "something to tell you. But you first."
"No," I replied; "you first."
It was for one moment a great relief to think that he was about to
save me from the trial I dreaded.
We took a few more steps in silence; I was looking down, not at him.
I felt my heart beat more than ever, fear was still there, but of a
different kind; I awaited his words as one might await a death-blow.
But they did not come. Suddenly he halted, and I, too.
"Well?" said I, and I lifted my head.
There he stood, smiling at me.
"Do you remember 'Peer Gynt'?" asked he. "That was the bush."