He had overlooked, he had forgiven, he had
loved and he had forgotten; and now, out of the mystery of a
dying man's whisper rose again that perverse, unsatisfied,
jealous uncertainty. Bess had loved that splendid, black-crowned
giant--by her own confession she had loved him; and in Venters's
soul again flamed up the jealous hell. Then into the clamoring
hell burst the shot that had killed Oldring, and it rang in a
wild fiendish gladness, a hateful, vengeful joy. That passed to
the memory of the love and light in Oldring's eyes and the
mystery in his whisper. So the changing, swaying emotions
fluctuated in Venters's heart.
This was the climax of his year of suffering and the crucial
struggle of his life. And when the gray dawn came he rose, a
gloomy, almost heartbroken man, but victor over evil passions. He
could not change the past; and, even if he had not loved Bess
with all his soul, he had grown into a man who would not change
the future he had planned for her. Only, and once for all, he
must know the truth, know the worst, stifle all these insistent
doubts and subtle hopes and jealous fancies, and kill the past by
knowing truly what Bess had been to Oldring. For that matter he
knew--he had always known, but he must hear it spoken. Then, when
they had safely gotten out of that wild country to take up a new
and an absorbing life, she would forget, she would be happy, and
through that, in the years to come, he could not but find life
worth living.
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