Sealed Lips — page 186: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

178 SEALED LIPS. and made not the slightest gesture. I can yet feel the look that she gave me: eight days ago from under her bridal vail before linking her life to an- other’s. And now I ask myself, ‘Have I done rightly?’ ” “Why did you make this sacrifice? Did your friend exact it?” “If he had not married this woman he would have killed himself, and cursed me. Mon pere, there is a word often used that is not understood; itis ‘passion.’ Well, for the first time in my life I understand it, in seeing everything crumble under the feet of this almost gray-haired man, health, love of his profession, ambition, and even friend- ship. Ah! what jealousy! What a base opinion of me! What sudden indifference as to my future! What undisguised joy at my departure! If you had seen him, broken down, ill, with only one thought in his mind. If you had heard him say, he, for whom nothing remained on this earth, ‘I will kill myself!’ you would have been afraid as I was. It isagreat stain upon one’s life to havea friend’s blood or even his broken heart to think of.” Pere Chrysostome left his seat and stood by the open window. “T impose upon you,” said Patrice, “but I have ended. Thisis what I have done. My friend is rich, I have nothing; that was also another motive for giving the woman that I love tohim. Now that it is all over, cruel regrets haunt me; a fright- RAC ao. (0)| KS ,(eC) nal