“Is it? Then I am in a bad way. Oh dear, oh dear, what a fool I am! What an idiot I’ve been! Fanny, I don’t think I can stay here; and I do so wish I’d never come. I do—I do—I do, though you look at me so horribly,” and jumping up she threw herself into her sister-in-law’s arms and began kissing her violently. “Don’t pretend to be wounded, for you know that I love you. You know that I could live with you all my life, and think you were perfect—as you are; but—”
“Has Mark said anything?”
“Not a word,—not a ghost of a syllable. It is not Mark; oh, Fanny!”
“I am afraid I know what you mean,” said Mrs. Robarts in a low tremulous voice, and with deep sorrow painted on her face.
“Of course you do; of course you know; you have known it all along: since that day in the pony-carriage. I knew that you knew it. You do not dare to mention his name: would not that tell me that you know it? And I, I am hypocrite enough for Mark; but my hypocrisy won’t pass muster before you. And, now, had I not better go to Devonshire?”
“Dearest, dearest Lucy.”
“Was I not right about that labelling? O heavens! what idiots we girls are! That a dozen soft words should have bowled me over like a ninepin, and left me without an inch of ground to call my own. And I was so proud of my own strength; so sure that I should never be missish, and spoony, and sentimental! I was so determined to like him as Mark does, or you—”
“I shall not like him at all if he has spoken words to you that he should not have spoken.”
“But he has not.” And then she stopped a moment to consider. “No, he has not. He never said a word to me that would make you angry with him if you knew of it. Except, perhaps, that he called me Lucy; and that was my fault, not his.”
“Because you talked of soft words.”