"I can hardly tell you what I mean! He seemed to me to be going away from me, as though he went into another world. His figure against the light was quite clear, and he walked quickly, and on he went, till the slope of the hill hid him from me. Of course, I thought that he would return to the Hall. At one time I almost feared that he would come upon me through the woods, as I went back myself. But yet, I had a feeling,—what people call a presentiment, that I should never see him again."
"He has never written?"
"No; not a word. You must remember that he did not know that I had hurt myself. I am sure he will not write, and I am sure, also, that I shall not. If he wanted money I would send it to him, but I would not write to him."
"I fear he will always want money, Kate."
"I fear he will. If you could know what I suffered when he made me write that letter to you! But, of course, I was a beast. Of course, I ought not to have written it."
"I thought it a very proper letter."
"It was a mean letter. The whole thing was mean! He should have starved in the street before he had taken your money. He should have given up Parliament, and everything else! I had doubted much about him before, but it was that which first turned my heart against him. I had begun to fear that he was not such a man as I had always thought him,—as I had spoken of him to you."
"I had judged of him for myself," said Alice.
"Of course you did. But I had endeavoured to make you judge kindly. Alice, dear! we have both suffered for him; you more than I, perhaps; but I, too, have given up everything for him. My whole life has been at his service. I have been his creature, to do his bidding, just as he might tell me. He made me do things that I knew to be wrong,—things that were foreign to my own nature; and yet I almost worshipped him. Even now, if he were to come back, I believe that I should forgive him everything."
"I should forgive him, but I could never do more."