No More Learning

'John,' she said, growing very pale, 'here are all the letters you ever
wrote me from your earliest boyhood. ' She took one of the large candles
from the mantelpiece, and, lighting it, placed it on the hearth.
Sherman wondered what she was going to do with it. 'I will tell you,'
she went on, 'what I had thought to carry to the grave unspoken. I have
loved you for a long time. When you came and told me you were going to
be married to another I forgave you, for man's love is like the wind,
and I prayed that God might bless you both. ' She leant down over the
candle, her face pale and contorted with emotion. 'All these letters
after that grew very sacred. Since we were never to be married they
grew a portion of my life, separated from everything and everyone--a
something apart and holy. I re-read them all, and arranged them in
little bundles according to their dates, and tied them with thread. Now
I and you--we have nothing to do with each other any more. '

She held the bundle of letters in the flame. He got up from his
seat. She motioned him away imperiously. He looked at the flame in a
bewildered way.
The letters fell in little burning fragments about
the hearth. It was all like a terrible dream. He watched those steady
fingers hold letter after letter in the candle flame, and watched the
candle burning on like a passion in the grey daylight of universal
existence. A draught from under the door began blowing the ash about
the room. The voice said--

'You tried to marry a rich girl. You did not love her, but knew she was
rich. You tired of her as you tire of so many things, and behaved to
her most wrongly, most wickedly and treacherously. When you were jilted
you came again to me and to the idleness of this little town. We had
all hoped great things of you. You seemed good and honest. '

'I loved you all along,' he cried. 'If you would marry me we would
be very happy. I loved you all along,' he repeated--this helplessly,
several times over. The bird shook a shower of seed on his shoulder. He
picked one of them from the collar of his coat and turned it over in
his fingers mechanically. 'I loved you all along.