A moment passed before she was answered.
“While you are in my house, courtesy forbids the expression of my opinion of your character.”
“Oh, Evelyn, my darling! God knows I have not merited this harshness, this cruelty from your dear hands. Eight tedious, miserable years I have searched and prayed for you,—have clung to the hope of finding you, of telling you all,—of hearing your precious lips utter those words for which my ears have so long ached, ‘Edith, I hold you guiltless of my wretchedness.’ But at last, when my search is successful, to be browbeaten, derided, denounced, insulted,—oh, this is bitter indeed! This is too hard to be borne!”
Her anguish was uncontrollable, and she sobbed aloud.
Across Mrs. Gerome’s white lips crept a quiver, and over her frozen features rose an unwonted flush; but she did not move a muscle, or suffer her eyes to wander from the cross and crown on Elsie’s tomb.
“Evelyn, I believe, I hope (and may God forgive me if I sin in hoping), that I have not many years, or perhaps even months to live; and it would comfort me in my dying hour to feel that I had laid before you some facts, of which I know you must be ignorant. You have harshly and unjustly prejudged me,—have steeled yourself against me; still I wish to tell you some things that weigh heavily upon my aching, desolate heart. Will you allow me to do so now? Will you hear me?”
There was evidently a struggle in the mind of the motionless woman beside the window, but it was brief, and left no trace in the cold, ringing voice.
“I will hear you.”
Slowly and impressively the governess began the narrative, of which she had given Dr. Grey a hasty résumé, and when she mentioned the midnight labors in which she had engaged, the copying of legal documents, the sale of her drawings, the hoarding of her salary in order to aid her mother and her betrothed, and to remove the obstacles to her marriage, Mrs. Gerome sat down, and, crossing her arms on the window-sill, hid her face upon them.