"I do not know why your mouth should be closed on such a subject because he has gone. I should have thought that you would be glad to acknowledge his kindness to you. But you were always hard."
"Perhaps I am hard."
"And twice he asked you to come here since you returned,—but you would not come."
"I have come now, Hermy, when I have thought that I might be of use."
"He felt it when you would not come before. I know he did." Lady Ongar could not but think of the way in which he had manifested his feelings on the occasion of his visit to Bolton Street. "I never could understand why you were so bitter."
"I think, dear, we had better not discuss that. I also have had much to bear,—I, as well as you. What you have borne has come in no wise from your own fault."
"No, indeed; I did not want him to go. I would have given anything to keep him at home."
Her sister had not been thinking of the suffering which had come to her from the loss of her husband, but of her former miseries. This, however, she did not explain. "No," Lady Ongar continued to say. "You have nothing for which to blame yourself, whereas I have much,—indeed everything. If we are to remain together, as I hope we may, it will be better for us both that bygones should be bygones."
"Do you mean that I am never to speak of Hugh?"
"No;—I by no means intend that. But I would rather that you should not refer to his feelings towards me. I think he did not quite understand the sort of life that I led while my husband was alive, and that he judged me amiss. Therefore I would have bygones be bygones."