“And what is to become of Clara?”
“Don't you see that she has found an uncle,—this Mr. Winthrop,—with whom, and our friend Quackinboss, she is to arrive at Rome to-night or to-morrow?”
“Oh, these are the friends for whom I was to bespeak an apartment; so, then, I 'll not leave my hotel. I 'm delighted to have such neighbors.”
“May ought to go and meet her; she ought to bring her here, and of course she will do so. But, first of all, to show her this letter; or shall I merely tell her certain parts of it?”
“I 'd let her read every line of it, and I 'd give it to Sir William also.”
Charles started at the counsel; but after a moment he said, “I believe you are right. The sooner we clear away these mysteries, the sooner we shall deal frankly together.”
“I have come to beg your pardon, May,” said Charles, as he stood on the sill of her door. “I could scarcely hope you 'd grant it save from very pity for me, for I have gone through much this last day or two. But, besides your pardon, I want your advice. When you have read over that letter,—read it twice,—I 'll come back again.”
May made him no answer, but, taking the letter, turned away. He closed the door noiselessly, and left her. Whatever may be the shock a man experiences on learning that the individual with whom for a space of time he has been associating on terms of easy intimacy should turn out to be one notorious in crime or infamous in character, to a woman the revulsion of feeling under like circumstances is tenfold more painful. It is not alone that such casualties are so much more rare, but in the confidences between women there is so much more interchange of thought and feeling that the shock is proportionately greater. That a man should be arraigned before a tribunal is a stain, but to a woman it is a brand burned upon her forever.
There had been a time when May and Mrs. Morris lived together as sisters. May had felt all the influence of a character more formed than her own, and of one who, gifted and accomplished as she was, knew how to extend that influence with consummate craft. In those long-ago days May had confided to her every secret of her heart,—her early discontents with Charles Heathcote; her pettish misgivings about the easy confidence of his security; her half flirtation with young Layton, daily inclining towards something more serious still. She recalled to mind, too, how Mrs. Morris had encouraged her irritation against Charles, magnifying all his failings into faults, and exaggerating the natural indolence of his nature into the studied indifference of one “sure of his bond.” And last of all she thought of her in her relations with Clara,—poor Clara, whose heart, overflowing with affection, had been repelled and schooled into a mere mockery of sentiment.
That her own fortune had been wasted and dissipated by this woman she well knew. Without hesitation or inquiry, May had signed everything that was put before her, and now she really could not tell what remained to her of all that wealth of which she used to hear so much and care so little.