The tears started. I felt them crowding to my eyes.
“I wish to see them happy.”
My voice faltered; but for her presence the agony at my heart would have burst forth in a wail.
“And that will make you happy?” she said, with an icy sneer. “You will remain and witness the joy your abnegation gives.”
“Never!” I cried, yielding to the anguish that was oppressing me. “I will go among my mother’s people—go”—I thought in my innermost heart—“go to the barrancas of Granada, to die of anguish as she did by violence.”
“And you will leave this country forever?”
“Madam, I will.”
“But this girl, this Cora Clark, where is she now? Mr. Upham, the new rector, sent down orders that her father should be removed from the parsonage—where has he gone? How are you sure that Irving cares for her, or would take her at any price?”
I shrank from exposing my poor friend’s weakness to the knowledge of that heartless woman; she seemed ignorant of her son’s perfidy, and its results in giving Cora to my protection. I rejoiced at this, and guarded the secret of their mutual fault as if it had been my own life.
“I am certain of it.”