“I hope,” said Mrs. Aumerle, “that the conveyance will rather be required to take Annabella back to the home which she should never have quitted.”
“I hope so too,” observed Augustine with a smile; “but I own that I have my doubts and my fears on the matter.”
The vicar at once proceeded to the room in which Ida was endeavouring, though with little effect, to soothe the irritated spirit of her cousin. Annabella rose on the clergyman’s entrance, and Ida, from a feeling of delicacy, silently left the apartment.
Aumerle gently communicated to his impatient auditor the message which he bore.
“His pardon!” exclaimed Annabella, striking her little hand with vehemence on a table which was beside her; “his pardon, forsooth! and for what? Nay, then, I see the truth of the words—
‘Forgiveness to the injured doth belong,
He never pardons who hath done the wrong,’”
and she laughed in the bitterness of her soul.
“My dear niece,” said the vicar tenderly but gravely, “even by your own account you had given just cause of displeasure to your husband, before he spoke the hasty word which you find it so difficult to forgive. Prejudice may blind you—”
“Uncle, let me have no more of this; I can’t bear it!” exclaimed Annabella, rising in nervous excitement. “If I am in your way—in Mrs. Aumerle’s way, I will leave the house at once, go to London—an hotel—anywhere—but I will not—” Her voice rose, and again she struck the table as she repeated the words,—“I will not go and beg pardon of the man who turned me out of my own room, and in the presence of a menial servant.”