A Good-For-Nothing | Page 8

am all attention."
"I did think, Mr. Grim," began she, breathing hard, and steadying
herself against the table at which she stood, "that you were a very
selfish man--an embodiment of selfishness, absolute and supreme, but I
did not believe that you were wicked."
"And what convinced you that I was selfish, if I may ask?"
"What convinced me?" repeated she, in a tone of inexpressible
contempt. "When did you ever act from any generous regard for others?
What good did you ever do to anybody?"
"You might ask, with equal justice, what good I ever did to myself."
"In a certain sense, yes; because to gratify a mere momentary wish is
hardly doing one's self good."
"Then I have, at all events, followed the Biblical precept, and treated
my neighbor very much as I treat myself."
"I did think," continued Bertha, without heeding the remark, "that you
were at bottom kind-hearted, but too hopelessly well-bred ever to
commit an act of any decided complexion, either good or bad. Now I

see that I have misjudged you, and that you are capable of outraging the
most sacred feelings of a woman's heart in mere wantonness, or for the
sake of satisfying a base curiosity, which never could have entered the
mind of an upright and generous man."
The hard, benumbed look in Ralph's face thawed in the warmth of her
presence, and her words, though stern, touched a secret spring in his
heart. He made two or three vain attempts to speak, then suddenly
broke down, and cried:
"Bertha, Bertha, even if you scorn me, have patience with me, and
listen."
And he told her, in rapid, broken sentences, how his love for her had
grown from day to day, until he could no longer master it; and how, in
an unguarded moment, when his pride rose in fierce conflict against his
love, he had done this reckless deed of which he was now heartily
ashamed. The fervor of his words touched her, for she felt that they
were sincere. Large mute tears trembled in her eyelashes as she sat
gazing tenderly at him, and in the depth of her soul the wish awoke that
she might have been able to return this great and strong love of his; for
she felt that in this love lay the germ of a new, of a stronger and better
man. She noticed, with a half-regretful pleasure, his handsome figure,
his delicately shaped hands, and the noble cast of his features; an
overwhelming pity for him rose within her, and she began to reproach
herself for having spoken so harshly, and, as she now thought, so
unjustly. Perhaps he read in her eyes the unspoken wish. He seized her
hand, and his words fell with a warm and alluring cadence upon her
ear.
"I shall not see you for a long time to come, Bertha," said he, "but if at
the end of five or six years your hand is still free, and I return another
man--a man to whom you could safely intrust your happiness--would
you then listen to what I may have to say to you? For I promise, by all
that we both hold sacred--"
"No, no," interrupted she, hastily. "Promise nothing. It would be unjust
to yourself, and perhaps also to me; for a sacred promise is a terrible

thing, Ralph. Let us both remain free; and, if you return and still love
me, then come, and I shall receive you and listen to you. And even if
you have outgrown your love, which is, indeed, more probable, come
still to visit me wherever I may be, and we shall meet as friends and
rejoice in the meeting."
"You know best," he murmured. "Let it be as you have said."
He arose, took her face between his hands, gazed long and tenderly into
her eyes, pressed a kiss upon her forehead, and hastened away.
That night Ralph boarded the steamer for Hull, and three weeks later
landed in New York.

IV
The first three months of Ralph's sojourn in America were spent in vain
attempts to obtain a situation. Day after day he walked down Broadway,
calling at various places of business, and night after night he returned
to his cheerless room with a faint heart and declining spirits. It was,
after all, a more serious thing than he had imagined, to cut the cable
which binds one to the land of one's birth. There a hundred subtile
influences, the existence of which no one suspects until the moment
they are withdrawn, unite to keep one in the straight path of rectitude,
or at least of external respectability; and Ralph's life had been all in
society; the opinion of his fellow-men had been the one force to which
he implicitly