"Only if she is so very good—desperately, you said."
"I used the word in jest, of course. You don't wish her to be very bad, of course."
"No, no—but in that way—you know what I mean. One can't help being rather afraid of people who talk a great deal very religiously—don't you think so? Though, perhaps—" Julia hesitated— "I am not religious, but sometimes I think I ought to be, and I wish I could be different. If I were like you, it would not matter. You are always so true, so exactly what you ought to be in everything; it seems as if you always did right as a matter of course, not because it is right, but because you can't help it. I can't even imagine your doing anything really wrong. You have your little faults, I suppose, but I cannot see them. I never see any one else quite like you. But I—oh, I am so different."
"You are talking great nonsense, Julia."
"No, I am not; things are just as I say. You are always good, and I am not, and I wish I were. It frightens me sometimes. I had such a dreadful shock one day since you left. Francesca promised that she and Mittie would not tell you, but I should not be happy unless you knew. I could not endure the feeling of something being hidden. Harvey, I nearly killed Mittie."
Harvey looked incredulous.
"Yes, it is true. It was an accident, of course—I mean it would have been—but it was temper too." Julia told him in smothered tones of the arrival of his letter, of the struggle in the balcony, and of Mittie's narrow escape. "It seemed so awful," she said, "to think how I should have felt if it had happened. And it might if Francesca had not been so near. I never have much strength in my arms, and the fright seemed almost to paralyse them, so that I felt Mittie sliding away, and I could not keep her. I can't tell you what a horrible moment that was. It comes back to me now, and turns me cold."
"No wonder; but after all, Mittie is a troublesome little puss."
"Yes; only that was no real excuse for me. Then, when I opened the letter, I found the news about poor old Mr. Dalrymple. And I suppose it was the two things coming so close together—I could not shake them off. I felt for days after as if there was nothing to rest upon, and no safety in looking forward. Do you know what it is to have such feelings? But of course you don't, because you never do anything so wrong. Perhaps the feelings will go now I have you again."
"I hope so. You have certainly been in a morbid state, my dear."