"Glencora!"
"I did do it suddenly. I know it. I did it like a beast that is driven as its owner chooses. I know it. I was a beast. Oh, Alice, if you know how I hate myself!"
"But I love you with all my heart," said Alice. "Glencora, I have learned to love you so dearly!"
"Then you are the only being that does. He can't love me. How is it possible? You,—and perhaps another."
"There are many who love you. He loves you. Mr. Palliser loves you."
"It is impossible. I have never said a word to him that could make him love me. I have never done a thing for him that can make him love me. The mother of his child he might have loved, because of that. Why should he love me? We were told to marry each other and did it. When could he have learned to love me? But, Alice, he requires no loving, either to take it or to give it. I wish it were so with me."
Alice said what she could to comfort her, but her words were but of little avail as regarded those marriage sorrows.
"Forgive you!" at last Glencora said. "What have I to forgive? You don't suppose I do not know it all, and think of it all without the chance of some stray word like that! Forgive you! I am so grateful that you love me! Some one's love I must have found,—or I could not have remained here."