To-morrow is always mystery. I wonder, is it not a dim
consciousness of this that renders the stage so attractive to the
multitude? Even its burlesques, its lurid melodramas, are never
utterly beyond the possible. Everywhere are found stranger stories
than any romancer can invent; and yet we sometimes term our lives
commonplace." She leaned back against the wall, a sob coming into her
voice. "What--what is going to be the end of this--for me?"
"Whatever you will," he exclaimed passionately, forgetful of all but
her power over him. "It is you who must choose."
"Yes, it is I who must choose," her face still uplifted. "Because I am
not a leaf to float on the air, my destiny decided by a breath of wind,
I must choose; yet how can I know I decide rightly? When heart and
conscience stand opposed, any decision means sacrifice and pain. I
meant those hasty words wrung out of me in shame, and spoken yonder; I
meant them then, and yet they haunt me like so many sheeted ghosts.
'Tis not their untruth, but the thought will not down that the real
cause of their utterance was not the wrong done me.
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