Bangor, had greatly weakened his confidence in
his arguments. Even to himself he seemed to have been strangely "easy";
his exposition sounded labored and hollow in his own ears. But worse
than this was the bottomless despondency into which the girl's brief
autobiography had strangely cast him. A vast mysterious depression had
closed over him, which entirely robbed him of his usual adroit felicity
of speech. He brought his explanation up to the publication of the
unhappy article, and there abruptly broke off.
A long silence followed his ending, and at last Sharlee said:--
"I suppose a sudden change of heart in the middle of a fight is always
an unhappy thing. It always means a good deal of pain for somebody.
Still--sometimes they must come, and when they do, I suppose the only
thing to do is to meet them honestly--though, personally, I think I
should always trust my heart against my head. But ... if you had only
come to us that first morning and frankly explained just why you
deserted us--if you had told us all this that you have just told me--"
"That is exactly what I wanted and intended to do," interrupted West.
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