“I don’t know, Lucius. How could I—I only think so.”
“Exactly! Then you are but giving your opinion! For that my dear Judith I am much obliged; but it has been for so long my habit to judge for myself in matters of those mutual relations between men which we call ‘honour’ that I have somehow come to trust my own opinion in preference to that of any one else—even you my dear Judith—and to act upon it.” Then, seeing the red flush of anger and humiliation in her cheeks whilst the tears seemed to leap into her eyes, he felt that he had gone too far and added:
“I trust that you will forgive me, my dear sister, if I have caused you unnecessary pain. Unhappily pain must follow such dereliction of duty as has been shown by that young man, and by you too; but believe me I would spare you if I could. But I can promise—and do so now—that I shall not again forget myself and speak bitterly, out of the bitterness of my heart as I have done. I pray your forgiveness, and trust that it may be extended to me.” The cynical words and tone of his apology, however it may have been meant, only added fuel to her anger. Words were inadequate, so she sought refuge in flight. As she went out of the door she heard Colonel Ogilvie say as if to himself:
“I may not know how to speak to women; but thank God, I do know how to deal with that damned fellow!”
Judy threw herself on her bed in a storm of futile passion. She could not but feel that she had been brutally treated; but she was powerless to either resent or explain. But well she knew that she had helped to leave matters worse for poor Joy than they had been. All the anger that Colonel Ogilvie had been repressing had now blazed out. He had expressed himself, and she had never known such expression of his to fail in tragic consequences. He would now never forgive Mr. Hardy for his double sins of omissions and commission. She was sorry for the young man’s sake; but was in anguish for the sake of the poor girl who had, she felt and knew, set her heart upon him. Joy’s romance in which her heart—her whole being and her future happiness—had been embarked was practically over, though she did not know it as yet. All the life-long brightness that even her father had ever hoped for her was gone. Henceforth she would be only a poor derelict, like Judy herself, wrecked on a lee shore! Judy had always pitied herself, but she had never realized the cause of that pity as she did now, seen as it was through the eyes of loving sympathy.
“I pitied my own heart,
As if I held it in my hand,
Somewhat coldly,—with a sense
Of fulfilled benevolence,
And a ‘Poor thing’ negligence.”