It may prove
productive of good results yet, who knows? Is it my fault that I didn't
know you sooner?"
I did not mistake the change in Mr. Rollin's tone, nor the meaning in his
eyes, but as we stood there by the window, in the full moonlight, I
caught a glimpse of another face outside, vanishing up the lane--almost
like a ghostly apparition it seemed to me--the handsome pale young face.
I guessed instinctively whose it was, and suffered a pang of sharp,
unconfessed pain, while the fisherman was murmuring in my ear.
"Don't speak to me again of missions!" I cried with the strong and tragic
air of consciously blighted aspirations. "I shall go on no more missions,
great or small. It is very true what you have tried so delicately to
intimate. I was not fit for the work I undertook to do. I have only made
mistakes all the way along. Possibly I have been only 'playing a part.'
What does it amount to, indeed! What does it amount to!"
"Heavens!" said Mr. Rollin; "play a part, by all means; never be sincere
in anything you do. I never tried it but once, and I've made a desperate
mess of it. Can't you understand that what I said was only in the purest
sort of self-defence? You weigh my words so nicely.
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