Emma, whose head had fallen on her breast, played idly with her long hair, and softly drew it across her face.
"If you knew," she murmured, "that he did not cherish one thought such as you imagine, would you then open your heart to this new love and the brightness in the world and all the hopes which belong to our time of life."
"If, if," repeated Hermione, staring at the half-hidden face of her sister as at some stranger whom she had found persistent and incomprehensible. "I don't know what you mean by your ifs. Do you think it would add to my content and self-satisfaction to hear that I had reared this ghastly prison which I inhabit on a foundation of sand, and that the walls in toppling would crash about my ears and destroy me? You must have a strange idea of a woman's heart, if you thought it would make me any readier to face life if I knew I had sacrificed my all to a chimera."
Emma sighed. "Not if it gave you a new hope," she whispered.
"Ah," murmured Hermione, and her face softened for the first time. "I dare not think of that," she murmured. "I dare not, Emma; I dare not."
The younger sister, as if answered, threw back her hair and looked at Hermione quite brightly.
"You will come to dare in time," said she, and fled from the room like a spirit.
When she was gone, Hermione stood still for many minutes; then she began quietly to let down her own hair. As the long locks fell curling and dark about her shoulders, a dreamier and dreamier spirit came upon her, mellowing the light in her half-closed eyes, and bringing such a sweet, half-timid, half-longing smile to her lips that she looked the embodiment of virginal joy. But the mood did not last long, and ere the thick curls were duly parted and arranged for the night, the tears had begun to fall, and the sobs to come till she was fain to put out her light and hide behind the curtains of her bed the grief and remorse which were pressing upon her.
Meanwhile Emma had stolen to her aunt's room, and was kneeling down beside her peaceful figure.
"Aunt, dear Aunt," she cried, "tell me what my duty is. Help me to decide if Hermione should be told the truth which we have so long kept from her."