No More Learning

"I ain't a piece of dirt, and you shouldn't call me so! I did it 'cause
I hated you, and I'm only sorry now 'cause you're 'cause you're----"

"Exactly--because I'm blind. There's noting like tact in little things. "

Bessie began to sob. She did not like being shackled against her will;
she was afraid of the blind face and the look upon it, and was sorry too
that her great revenge had only made Dick laugh.

"Don't cry," he said, and took her into his arms. "You only did what you
thought right. "

"I--I ain't a little piece of dirt, and if you say that I'll never come
to you again. "

"You don't know what you've done to me. I'm not angry--indeed, I'm not.
Be quiet for a minute. "

Bessie remained in his arms shrinking. Dick's first thought was
connected with Maisie, and it hurt him as white-hot iron hurts an open
sore.

Not for nothing is a man permitted to ally himself to the wrong woman.

The first pang--the first sense of things lost is but the prelude to
the play, for the very just Providence who delights in causing pain has
decreed that the agony shall return, and that in the midst of keenest
pleasure.
They know this pain equally who have forsaken or been forsaken by
the love of their life, and in their new wives' arms are compelled to
realise it.

It is better to remain alone and suffer only the misery of being alone,
so long as it is possible to find distraction in daily work. When that
resource goes the man is to be pitied and left alone.

These things and some others Dick considered while he was holding Bessie
to his heart.

"Though you mayn't know it," he said, raising his head, "the Lord is a
just and a terrible God, Bess; with a very strong sense of humour. It
serves me right--how it serves me right! Torp could understand it if
he were here; he must have suffered something at your hands, child, but
only for a minute or so. I saved him. Set that to my credit, some one. "

"Let me go," said Bess, her face darkening. "Let me go. "

"All in good time. Did you ever attend Sunday school? "

"Never. Let me go, I tell you; you're making fun of me. "

"Indeed, I'm not.