"Hush," whispered again Emma, "you do not love him. Answer me, if you do. Plunge deep into your heart, and say if you feel as you did once; I want to hear the words from your lips, but be honest."
"Would it be any credit to me if I did not? Would you think more of me if I acknowledged the past was a mistake, and that I wrecked my life for a passion which a year's absence could annul."
But the tender Emma was inexorable, and held her sister by the hands while she repeated.
"Answer, answer! or I shall take your very refusal for a reply."
But Hermione only drooped her head, and finally drew away her hands.
"You seem to prefer the cause of this new man," she murmured ironically. "Perhaps you think he will make the better brother-in-law."
The flush on Emma's cheek spread till it dyed her whole neck.
"I think," she observed gravely, "that Mr. Etheridge is the more devoted to you, Hermione. Dr. Sellick—" what did not that name cost her?—"has not even looked up at our windows when riding by the house."
Hermione's eye flashed, and she bounded imperiously to her feet.
"And that is why I think that he still remembers. And shall I forget?" she murmured more softly, "while he cherishes one thought of grief or chagrin over the past?"