“If you read us truly, you read us harshly too,” began he. But she cut him short, by asking,—
“And who was your informant? Paten, was n't it?”
“Yes, I heard everything from him,” said he, calmly.
“And my letters—have you read them too?”
“No. I have heard him allude to them, but never saw them.”
“So, then, there is some baseness yet left for him,” said she, bitterly, “and I 'm almost sorry for it. Do you know, or will you believe me when I tell it, that, after a life with many reverses and much to grieve over, my heaviest heart-sore was ever having known that man?”
“You surely cared for him once?”
“Never, never!” burst she out, violently. “When we met first, I was the daily victim of more cruelties than might have crushed a dozen women. His pity was very precious, and I felt towards him as that poor prisoner we read of felt towards the toad that shared his dungeon. It was one living thing to sympathize with, and I could not afford to relinquish it, and so I wrote all manner of things,—love-letters I suppose the world would call them, though some one or two might perhaps decipher the mystery of their meaning, and see in them all the misery of a hopeless woman's heart. No matter, such as they were, they were confessions wrung out by the rack, and need not have been recorded as calm avowals, still less treasured up as bonds to be paid off.”
“But if you made him love you—”
“Made him love me!” repeated she, with insolent scorn; “how well you know your friend! But even he never pretended that. My letters in his eyes were I O U's, and no more. Like many a one in distress, I promised any rate of interest demanded of me; he saw my misery, and dictated the terms.”