"Frank has entirely spoilt my life: I can never forgive him--never," I pleaded. "But you'll have to, Reggie: there's no getting away from it and the more impossible it is, the more you'll have to do it. Don't think I'm not sorry for you, or don't understand how hideous it all is, for I am and do: but there's no use in shutting your eyes to the truth. Lots of people would tell you not to bother about Frank at all, but to give your whole attention to Fay and how to get her back again, and they would add that your first duty is to your wife." "And so it is," I cried. "No, it isn't, Reggie, and you know it. Your first duty is to God: and if the Bible means anything, it means that if we don't forgive other people we don't get forgiveness ourselves. I don't want to preach at you, goodness knows, or to be priggish or anything of that kind: and I know it sounds awfully antiquated and Victorian to 'be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever,' but, all the same, as you grow older, you learn that it's the only thing that really counts." I groaned. I knew so well that Isabel was right. "Of course there have been faults all round--plenty of them," she went on; "and it seems to me that while Annabel and Frank were busy doing that which they ought not to have done, you were equally busy leaving undone that which you ought to have done: but that's neither here nor there. It's no good bothering over the day that's past and over: what we've got to do is to see that to-morrow is an improvement on it: and the job to hand at present is that before you do anything else you've got to forgive Frank Wildacre." "Damn him!" I exclaimed, getting up from my chair and kicking the logs in the fireplace as if they had been Frank himself. Isabel smiled sweetly. "That's all very well, Reggie; but you aren't damning him, you see: you're only damning yourself. That's my whole point." I began to walk up and down the great hall. This was plain speaking indeed. "I know I'm being very horrid," she went on, "and I don't wonder you detest me. I feel like that man in the Bible--Balaam, wasn't it?--who was invited out to curse somebody and blessed them instead: only it is just the other way round with me. But, all the same, you'll never be happy, and Fay will never be happy, until you forgive Frank. Of course, you've got to forgive Fay too, and you haven't really done that yet: but you soon will when you see her again. I'm not worrying about that. The nut to crack is not Fay but Frank." And that was all the comfort I got from Isabel Chayford. From the depths of my desolate heart I knew that what Isabel said was true: and equally from the depths of my soul I knew that as long as he lived I could never forgive Frank Wildacre. CHAPTER XXI THE GREAT WAR