Even should I live it would be impossible that we
should be man and wife."
"Oh yes."
"But nevertheless I love you. Try,--try to be true to some one."
"There is no truth left in me, Mr. Morton. I should not dishonour
my husband if I had one, but still I should be a curse to him. I
shall marry some day I suppose, and I know it will be so. I wish I
could change with you,--and die."
"You are unhappy now."
"Indeed I am. I am always unhappy. I do not think you can tell what
it is to be so wretched. But I am glad that you have forgiven me."
Then she stooped down and kissed his hand. As she did so he touched
her brow with his hot lips, and then she left him again. Lady
Ushant was waiting outside the door. "He knows it all," said
Arabella. "You need not trouble yourself with the message I gave
you. The carriage is at the door. Good-bye. You need not come down.
Mamma will not expect it." Lady Ushant, hardly knowing how she
ought to behave, did not go down. Lady Augustus and her daughter
got into Mr. Runciman's carriage without any farewells, and were
driven back from the park to the Dillsborough Station. To poor Lady
Ushant the whole thing had been very terrible. She sat silent and
unoccupied the whole of that evening wondering at the horror of
such a history. This girl had absolutely dared to tell the dying
man all her own disgrace,--and had travelled down from London to
Bragton with the purpose of doing so! When next she crept into the
sick-room she almost expected that her nephew would speak to her on
the subject; but he only asked whether that sound of wheels which
he heard beneath his window had come from the carriage which had
taken them away, and then did not say a further word of either Lady
Augustus or her daughter.
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