Then that which I expected had come at last!—And I knew it!
I am ashamed to say that I forgot all about Thyrza. I think I even forgot where I was. Noises were sounding in my ears, like the distant roar of a great city; and a dread of what I might find in that letter had possession of me.
For I could see it to be some manner of outpouring; and I could conjecture what the outpouring might include. I quailed before the prospect. Suspicion was one thing; certainty would be another. I believed that I had fully forgiven Miss Millington. Would the battle have now to be fought all over again?
With a voiceless prayer, and with a resolute effort, I took up the sheets, not reading yet, but glancing rapidly at a sentence here or there. When I reached the end thus, one short assertion only remained on my mind—
"I was not really sure."
I must have sunk into a dream upon those five words, and their possible meaning. Then I woke up to the fact that the letter contained much besides, especially the sad news of Mrs. Millington's death.
I began again at the beginning, and read the whole through carefully. It was a sorrowful composition,—bitter, self-reproachful, miserable in tone. I cannot copy the whole, and I will not keep the original. A few sentences will be enough.
"I don't know what kept me from speaking, that day," she wrote. "For I did really want to tell you I was sorry; only I could not. I suppose it was pride. I know I am proud. I did so hate to take the money; and yet somehow I could not say no, for I thought it might save my Mother's life. And it has not. That is the worst of all. I have gone through that horrible humiliation for nothing. Mother did seem better for a time, and of course it was a real comfort to her to be out of debt, but she failed at last quite suddenly, and nothing more could be done.
"It was only yesterday that she died.
"I am writing to you now, because I must. I dare not put off. I have such a dreadful feeling that perhaps, if I had spoken out sooner, God would not have taken my Mother. I dare say some people would say I am foolish to think this, but I know better. All these months I have known I ought to speak, and I have been struggling against it; and now she is gone, and I have nobody left except Jeannie. And perhaps if I do not speak out, she will be taken too. I don't think I could bear that. She looks ill, and it terrifies me. I dare say I deserve that, or anything,—but at all events, I am telling you the truth now. I wish I had before . . .
"You told me you had forgiven me: but I never could feel that was real, because if you had known all, you would not have said so . . .
"I don't know what made me hate you as I did! I suppose it was partly your being Mrs. Romilly's friend. And I always thought you could not endure me: and when you seemed kind, I felt sure you had an object. I can't make up my mind how much you really know of things, or how much I ought to tell you—" and then followed melancholy particulars, written as it seemed to me in a half-broken half-bitter spirit, more because she dreaded not to tell from a haunting fear of punishment, than because her will was bowed to do God's will.
No need to copy out these details. Only—I have not judged her falsely.
For the Gurglepool trick was hers: and she did set herself to oppose my authority in every possible way. She endeavoured systematically to turn the girls against me. She used the opportunity to look into my private journal, and she employed afterwards the information so gained, making it a subject of jesting with the girls, and untruthfully professing to have learnt it through a friend of hers who lives in Bath.