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A Circle In The Water
by
“Nothing. I saw you lying down, over there, and I wanted to attract your attention.” He let my hand go, and looked at me apologetically.
“Oh! was that all?” I said. “I thought you saw something in the water.”
“No,” he answered, as if he felt the censure which I had not been able to keep out of my voice.
II.
I do not know why I should have chosen to take this simple fact as proof of an abiding want of straight-forwardness in Tedham’s nature. I do not know why I should have expected him to change, or why I should have felt authorized at that moment to renew his punishment for it. I certainly had said and thought very often that he had been punished enough, and more than enough. In fact, his punishment, like all the other punishments that I have witnessed in life, seemed to me wholly out of proportion to the offence; it seemed monstrous, atrocious, and when I got to talking of it I used to become so warm that my wife would warn me people would think I wanted to do something like Tedham myself if I went on in that way about him. Yet here I was, at my very first encounter with the man, after his long expiation had ended, willing to add at least a little self-reproach to his suffering. I suppose, as nearly as I can analyse my mood, I must have been expecting, in spite of all reason and experience, that his anguish would have wrung that foible out of him, and left him strong where it had found him weak. Tragedy befalls the light and foolish as well as the wise and weighty natures, but it does not render them wise and weighty; I had often made this sage reflection, but I failed to apply it to the case before me now.
After waiting a little for the displeasure to clear away from my face, Tedham smiled as if in humorous appreciation, and I perceived, as nothing else could have shown me so well, that he was still the old Tedham. There was an offer of propitiation in this smile, too, and I did not like that, either; but I was touched when I saw a certain hope die out of his eye at the failure of his appeal to me.
“Who told you I was here?” I asked, more kindly. “Did you see Mrs. March?”
“No, I think it must have been your children. I found them in front of your house, and I asked them for you, without going to the door.”
“Oh,” I said, and I hid the disappointment I felt that he had not seen my wife; for I should have liked such a leading as her behavior toward him would have given me for my own. I was sure she would have known him at once, and would not have told him where to find me, if she had not wished me to be friendly with him.
“I am glad to see you,” I said, in the absence of this leading; and then I did not know what else to say. Tedham seemed to me to be looking very well, but I could not notify this fact to him, in the circumstances; he even looked very handsome; he had aged becomingly, and a clean-shaven face suited him as well as the full beard he used to wear; but I could speak of these things as little as of his apparent health. I did not feel that I ought even to ask him what I could do for him. I did not want to have anything to do with him, and, besides, I have always regarded this formula as tantamount to saying that you cannot, or will not, do anything for the man you employ it upon.
The silence which ensued was awkward, but it was better than anything I could think of to say, and Tedham himself seemed to feel it so. He said, presently, “Thank you. I was sure you would not take my coming to you the wrong way. In fact I had no one else to come to–after I—-” Tedham stopped, and then, “I don’t know,” he went on, “whether you’ve kept run of me; I don’t suppose you have; I got out to-day at noon.”