Some seconds passed; I wondered whether there would be time for me to
hear the rest before his wife returned.
* * * * *
"In my soul I feared that I had finished it," he repeated.
"Extraordinary as it appears, I was in love with a woman I had never
seen. Each time that bell sounded, my heart seemed to try to choke me.
It had been my grievance, since we had the telephone installed, that we
heard nothing of it excepting that we had to make another payment for
its use; but now, by a maddening coincidence, everybody that I had ever
met took to ringing me up about trifles and agitating me twenty times a
day.
"At last, one night--when expectation was almost dead--she called to me
again. Oh, but her voice was humble! My friend, it is piteous when we
love a woman, to hear her humbled. I longed to take her hands, to fold
my arms about her. I abased myself, that she might regain her pride.
She heard how I had missed and sorrowed for her; I owned that she was
dear to me.
"And then began a companionship--strange as you may find the word--
which was the sweetest my life has held. We talked together daily. This
woman, whose whereabouts, whose face, whose name were all unknown to
me, became the confidant of my disappointments and my hopes. If I
worked well, my thoughts would be, 'Tonight I shall have good news to
give her;' if I worked ill--'Never mind, by-and-by she will encourage
me!' There was not a page in my next novel that I did not read to her;
never a doubt beset me in which I did not turn for her sympathy and
advice.
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