He thought he had done her harm, for she cried till she was absolutely spent, sick, faint and weak as a child.
But she was like a child, and when her head was on the pillow she begged for Trevorsham to wish her good-night. I think she tried to fancy his kiss was Trevor's.
Any way the bitter black despair was gone from that time. She believed in and accepted his kindness like a sort of after glow from Trevor's love. Perhaps it did her the more good that after all he was only a boy, sometimes forgot her, and sometimes hurried after his own concerns, so that there was more excitement in it than if it had been the steady certain tenderness of an older person on which she could reckon.
She certainly cared for no one like Trevorsham. She even came downstairs that she might see him more constantly, and while he was at home, she seemed to think of no one else. But she had softened to us all, and accepted us as her belongings, in a matter-of-course kind of way. Only when he was gone did she one day say in a heavy dreary tone, that she must soon be leaving us.
But I told her, as we had agreed, that she was very far from well enough to go away alone; for indeed, it was true that disease of the lungs had set in, and to send her away to languish and die alone was not to be thought of.
My answer made her look up to me, and say, "I don't see why you should all be so good to me! Do you know how I have hated you?"
I could not help smiling a little at that, it had so little to do with the matter; but I bent down and kissed her, the first time I had ever done so.
"I don't understand it," she said, and then pushing me away suddenly. "No! you cannot know, that I—I—I was the first to devise mischief against that boy. Perrault would never have thought of it, but for me! Now, you see whom you are harbouring! Perhaps, you thought it all Perrault's doing."
"No, we did not," I said.
"And you still cherish me! I—who drove you from your home and rank, and came from wishing the death of your darling, to contriving it!"