‘If so, I am heartily obliged to you for it! The shock was welcome that brought me home. A governess? Oh! I had rather be a scullery-maid, than go on as I was doing there!’
‘Then you did not care for him?’
‘Never! But he pestered me, Rashe pestered me; nobody cared for me—I—I—’ and she sobbed a long, tearless sob.
‘Ha!’ said Owen, gravely and kindly, ‘then there was something in the Fulmort affair after all. Lucy, I am going away; let me hear it for once. If I ever come back, I will not be so heedless of you as I have been. If he have been using you ill!’
‘I used him ill,’ said Lucy, in an inward voice.
‘Nothing more likely!’ muttered Owen, in soliloquy. ‘But how is it, Cilla: can’t you make him forgive?’
‘He does, but as Honor forgives you. You know it was no engagement. I worked him up to desperation last year. Through Phœbe, I was warned that he would not stand my going to Ireland. I answered that it was no concern of his; I defied him to be able to break with me. They bothered me so that I was forced to go to spite them. He thought—I can’t wonder at it—that I was irreclaimable; he was staying here, was worked on by the sight of this horrible district, and, between pique and goodness run mad, has devoted self and fortune. He gave me to understand that he has made away with every farthing. I don’t know if he would wish it undone.’
She spoke into the knapsack, jerking out brief sentences.
‘He didn’t tell you he had taken a vow of celibacy?’
‘I should not think it worth while.’