"
"Why?"
"Because the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children unto the
third and fourth generation."
Slowly, softly, she crept away. Her mind seemed very clear. And she
began a long journey to reach her window and chair--a long, long
journey; but at last she sank into the chair again and sat dry-eyed,
wondering who had conceived this world and made it, and why.
A long time afterward she found herself lying in bed, awake, conscious,
clear-minded. Yet she thought as little as possible, for that was pain;
but she listened gladly, for without she heard the solemn beating of the
sea, the mighty rhythmic beating of the sea. Long days she lay, and sat
and walked beside those vast and speaking waters, till at last she knew
their voice and they spoke to her and the sea-calm soothed her soul.
For one brief moment of her life she saw herself clearly: a well-meaning
woman, ambitious, but curiously narrow; not willing to work long for
the Vision, but leaping at it rashly, blindly, with a deep-seated sense
of duty which she made a source of offence by preening and parading it,
and forcing it to ill-timed notice. She saw that she had looked on her
husband as a means not an end. She had wished to absorb him and his work
for her own glory. She had idealized for her own uses a very human man
whose life had been full of sin and fault.
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