“I don’t think I shall be long,” murmured Ermine, a vivid colour flashing forth upon her cheek, and leading the question from herself. “Just suppose you did carry out this fierce act of self-abnegation, what do you think could come next?”
“I don’t know! I would not break down or die if I could help it,” added Rachel, faintly after her brave beginning.
“And for him? Do you think being cast off would be so very pleasant to him?”
Rachel hung her head, and her lips made a half murmur of, “Would not it be good for him?”
“No, Rachel, it is the very sorest trial there can be when, even in the course of providence, kind intentions are coldly requited; and it would be incalculably harder when therewith there would be rejection of love.”
“Ah! I never said I could do it. I could not tell him I did not care for him, and short of that nothing would stop it,” sobbed Rachel, “only I wished to feel it was not very mean—very wrong.” She laid her weary head on Ermine’s lap, and Ermine bent down and kissed her.
“So happy, so bright and free, and capable, his life seems now,” proceeded Rachel. “I can’t understand his joining it to mine; and if people shunned and disliked him for my sake!”
“Surely that will depend on yourself. I have never seen you in society, but if you have the fear of making him unpopular or remarkable before your eyes, you will avoid it.”
“Oh, yes, I know,” said Rachel, impatiently. “I did think I should not have been a commonplace woman,” and she shed a few tears.
Ermine was provoked with her, and began to think that she had been arguing on a wrong tack, and that it would be better after all for Alick to be free. Rachel looked up presently. “It must be very odd to you to hear me say so, but I can’t help feeling the difference. I used to think it so poor and weak to be in love, or to want any one to take care of one. I thought marriage such ordinary drudgery, and ordinary opinions so contemptible, and had such schemes for myself. And this—and this is such a break down, my blunders and their consequences have been so unspeakably dreadful, and now instead of suffering, dying—as I felt I ought—it has only made me just like other women, for I know I could not live without him, and then all the rest of it must come for his sake.”