"I loved her, but, from blindness of eye or an overwhelming egotism which God has certainly punished, I did not consider her beautiful. This I must acknowledge to you, if only to complete my humiliation. I never imagined for a moment, even after I became the daily witness of your many attentions to her, that it was on her account you visited the house so often. I had been so petted and spoiled since entering society that I thought you were kind to her simply because honor forbade you to be too kind to me; and seeing in you a man different from the others—one—who—who pleased me as the heroes of my old romances had pleased me, I gave you all my heart and, what was worse, confided my folly to Dorothy.
"You will have many a talk with her in the future, and some day she may succeed in proving to you that it was vanity and not badness of heart which led me to misunderstand your feelings. Having repressed my own impulses so long, I saw in your reticence the evidences of a like struggle; and when, immediately upon my break with Mr. Sinclair, you entered here and said the words you did—Well, we have finished with this subject for ever.
"The explanations which I gave below, of the part I played in my aunt's death were true. I only omitted one detail, which you may consider a very important one. The fact which paralyzed my hand and voice when I saw her lift the drop of death to her lips was this: I had meant to die by this drop myself, in Dorothy's room, and with Dorothy's arms about me. This was my secret—a secret which no one can blame me for keeping as long as I could, and one which I should hardly have the courage to disclose to you now if I had not already parted with it to the coroner, who would not credit my story till I had told him the whole truth."
"Gilbertine," I prayed, for I saw her fingers closing upon the knob she had held lightly till now, "do not go till I have said this. A young girl does not always know the demands of her own nature. The heart you have ignored is one in a thousand. Do not let it slip from you. God never gives a woman such a love twice."
"I know it," she murmured, and turned the knob.
I thought she was gone, and let the sigh which had been laboring at my breast have vent, when suddenly I caught one last word whispered from the threshold:
"Throw back the shutters and let in the light. Dorothy is coming. I am going now to call her."
An hour had passed, the hour of hours for me, for in it the sun of my happiness rose full-orbed and Dorothy and I came to understand each other. We were sitting hand in hand in this blessed little boudoir, when suddenly she turned her sweet face toward me and gently remarked:
"This seems like selfishness on our part; but Gilbertine insisted. Do you know what she is doing now? Helping old Mrs. Cummings and holding Mrs. Barnstable's baby while her maid packs. She will work like that all day, and with a smile, too. Oh, it is a rich nature, an ideal nature! I think we can trust her now."
I did not like to discuss Gilbertine even with Dorothy, so I said nothing. But she was too full of her theme to stop. I think she wished to unburden her mind once and for ever of all that had disturbed it.