‘Is it through his influence that you came here?’
‘O no! And of all the world I wouldn’t have him know that I am here, or get the least clue where to find me.’
‘Lizzie, dear! Why?’ asked Bella, in amazement at this burst. But then quickly added, reading Lizzie’s face: ‘No. Don’t say why. That was a foolish question of mine. I see, I see.’
There was silence between them. Lizzie, with a drooping head, glanced down at the glow in the fire where her first fancies had been nursed, and her first escape made from the grim life out of which she had plucked her brother, foreseeing her reward.
‘You know all now,’ she said, raising her eyes to Bella’s. ‘There is nothing left out. This is my reason for living secret here, with the aid of a good old man who is my true friend. For a short part of my life at home with father, I knew of things—don’t ask me what—that I set my face against, and tried to better. I don’t think I could have done more, then, without letting my hold on father go; but they sometimes lie heavy on my mind. By doing all for the best, I hope I may wear them out.’
‘And wear out too,’ said Bella soothingly, ‘this weakness, Lizzie, in favour of one who is not worthy of it.’
‘No. I don’t want to wear that out,’ was the flushed reply, ‘nor do I want to believe, nor do I believe, that he is not worthy of it. What should I gain by that, and how much should I lose!’
Bella’s expressive little eyebrows remonstrated with the fire for some short time before she rejoined:
‘Don’t think that I press you, Lizzie; but wouldn’t you gain in peace, and hope, and even in freedom? Wouldn’t it be better not to live a secret life in hiding, and not to be shut out from your natural and wholesome prospects? Forgive my asking you, would that be no gain?’
‘Does a woman’s heart that—that has that weakness in it which you have spoken of,’ returned Lizzie, ‘seek to gain anything?’