“I—believed—it—myself. God—help me!”
“No—no—no! You couldn’t have,” and the momentary instinct to shrink away from the utterer of this terrible self-denunciation, passed. “You have been so frightfully upset, Edala, and you hardly know what you are saying. Why I have known your father for weeks only, and you have known him all your life, and yet I would no more believe him guilty of—of what those horrible wretches were saying than I would yourself. It is impossible that you could have done so.”
“But I did. I don’t now—and it is too late. He predicted that that would happen, and so did you. Too late—too late!”
And again her face was buried in her hands.
No one living was farther removed from the hysterical tendency than Evelyn Carden, but now she required every effort of her will to command her own nerves—not to break down herself. The inconceivable despair with which those last words were uttered was awful. Quickly again Edala looked up.
“If he does not come back to me,” she said, slowly and solemnly, “that I may tell him what a horrible wicked wretch I’ve been to him, I shall go and tell him in the other world. I shall kill myself. As sure as there is a God above I shall kill myself.”
The words were not uttered passionately. There was a calm solemnity about them which caused the other to believe that she would keep her word. What comfort could be administered to such remorse as this?
Then, in a moment, the scales dropped from Evelyn’s eyes, and she stood there as one who beheld a new revelation. Everything stood clear now, the aloofness with which the neighbourhood had treated her relatives and for which Thornhill had, with good-humoured contempt, pronounced himself duly thankful; in that the said neighbourhood consisted of a rotten crowd, the bulk of whom were scarcely able to write their own names, and the residue perhaps too well able to write those of other people. Edala’s attitude, too, stood explained. If she believed that her father had done this thing why the estrangement was only natural. If she believed—but—how could she—how could she? Before Evelyn could reply, however, a step was heard outside, and the door opened.
Hyland half drew back, then entered.
“Now, now, you two. This won’t do you know. Didn’t you promise me to keep up?” he said but there was a suspicious quaver in his own voice which rendered his tone gruff. “The more so that I’ve got some news for you.”