Had Lucilla Sandbrook realized the effect of her note, she would never have dashed it off; but, like all heedless people, pain out of her immediate ken was nothing to her.
After the loving hopes raised by the curate’s report, and after her own tender and forgiving letter, Honor was pierced to the quick by the scornful levity of those few lines. Of the ingratitude to herself she thought but little in comparison with the heartless contempt towards Robert, and the miserable light-mindedness that it manifested.
‘My poor, poor child!’ was all she said, as she saw Phœbe looking with terror at her countenance; ‘yes, there is an end of it. Let Robert never vex himself about her again.’
Phœbe took up the note, read it over and over again, and then said low and gravely, ‘It is very cruel.’
‘Poor child, she was born to the Charteris nature, and cannot help it! Like seeks like, and with Paris before her, she can see and feel nothing else.’
Phœbe vaguely suspected that there might be a shadow of injustice in this conclusion. She knew that Miss Charlecote imagined Lucilla to be more frivolous than was the case, and surmised that there was more offended pride than mere levity in the letter. Insight into character is a natural, not an acquired endowment; and many of poor Honor’s troubles had been caused by her deficiency in that which was intuitive to Phœbe, though far from consciously. That perception made her stand thoughtful, wondering whether what the letter
betrayed were folly or temper, and whether, like Miss Charlecote, she ought altogether to quench her indignation in contemptuous pity.
‘There, my dear,’ said Honor, recovering herself, after having sat with ashy face and clasped hands for many moments. ‘It will not bear to be spoken or thought of. Let us go to something else. Only, Phœbe, my child, do not leave her out of your prayers.’
Phœbe clung about her neck, kissed and fondled her, and felt her cheeks wet with tears, in the passionate tenderness of the returning caress.
The resolve was kept of not going back to the subject, but Honora went about all day with a soft, tardy step, and subdued voice, like one who has stood beside a death-bed.