Читать книгу The Blind Man's House. A Quiet Story онлайн

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'Lizzie, I'm so terribly, so fearfully in love!'

'Yes, sir. I know you are, sir.'

He seemed now to be engaged in some terrible struggle with himself. She watched his face, yearning to help him, striving with all that she had in her to help him.

'There are things I suppose a man should always keep to himself. Englishmen especially think it wrong. But we've been close friends for ten years, haven't we?'

'Yes, sir. I'm proud to say we have.'

'You know me so well. You're the only human being alive now who knew both Elinor and myself as we were truly together.'

'Yes, sir.'

'You know how devoted we were, what a grand, fine human being she was, so much finer than myself. You know how lost I was after she went. You comforted me as no one else did.'

'I did my best, sir.'

'And so, Lizzie, you can understand better than anyone else what it means when I say that I never knew what love really was before I met my present wife. I don't know what it is now. I'm making new discoveries every day. And—listen to this, Lizzie, mark it, put it deep in your mind—if ever I have regretted being blind, if ever I have agonized over it, and cursed it, and regretted it, I'm cursing and regretting it now. I told you just now that the cursing part of it was over long ago. Well, it's all come back. I love her so terribly, Lizzie, and I can't see her, I can't tell where she goes to, I don't know what she's doing. She may be making faces at me for all I know!'