This was indeed a new light upon what Hobart had been masculine enough to think a mere example of woman’s rudeness to woman; and in that light the speechless flight of the unfortunate Mildred now bore the colour of true pathos. Moreover, following his awakened doubts of Julietta, his wife’s view of his conduct began to be uncomfortably convincing. He feared that he was going to be remorseful.
“Of course you don’t dream I’m not fond of Mildred,” he said. “I’ve always been very——”
“You show it strangely,” Anne interrupted. She spoke with no softening of her resentment, though what she felt for her sister brought to her eyes the tears she had been withholding, and he saw them as a street light flashed through the glass of the window beside her. “Mildred’s the kind of woman people do hurt, I suppose. She’s so gentle and harmless herself, it must be a temptation! She’s always been so lovely to you, I suppose you couldn’t resist it.”
“Oh, look here!” he protested, and his fears were realized; he was already remorseful. “You know I wouldn’t have hurt——”
“Then why did you?”
“Well, if I did,” he said, desperately;—“and, confound it, I’m afraid maybe I did—I suppose it was because jealousy is the kind of suffering that onlookers always have the least sympathy with. I’ll beg her pardon, and, if I caused her pain, I’ll try to make it up to her.”
“How can you do that?”
“I don’t know,” he said, regretfully. “I’ll just have to try to find some way.”
“That wouldn’t be very easy,” his wife said. “Could you get her husband back for her, if this girl gets him away?”
“But that is nonsense,” he protested. “Julietta Voss couldn’t get that far with old John—not if she had all eternity to try in!”