"And now I shall vanish alone. My poor little wife! It seems all like a dream. She was so good, so pure, so pretty, so loving!"
"Loving! A man's love is so easily transferred;—as easily as a woman's hand;—is it not, Phineas? Say the word, for it is what you are thinking."
"I was thinking of no such thing."
"You must think it—You need not be afraid to reproach me. I could bear it from you. What could I not bear from you? Oh, Phineas;—if I had only known myself then, as I do now!"
"It is too late for regrets," he said. There was something in the words which grated on her feelings, and induced her at length to withdraw herself from his arm. Too late for regrets! She had never told herself that it was not too late. She was the wife of another man, and therefore, surely it was too late. But still the word coming from his mouth was painful to her. It seemed to signify that for him at least the game was all over.
"Yes, indeed," she said,—"if our regrets and remorse were at our own disposal! You might as well say that it is too late for unhappiness, too late for weariness, too late for all the misery that comes from a life's disappointment."
"I should have said that indulgence in regrets is vain."
"That is a scrap of philosophy which I have heard so often before! But we will not quarrel, will we, on the first day of my return?"
"I hope not."
"And I may speak to Barrington?"