‘The first—not the second,’ she murmured.
‘Yes, the second—the third. There was a moment when I could have given my soul for my revenge!’
‘Only a moment!’
‘Only a moment, thank Heaven! and I have not done quite so badly since. I hope I have not suffered quite in vain; but if that shock could overthrow all my wonted guards, it might, though I pray Heaven it may not, it might happen again.’
‘I think you conquered yourself then, and that you will again,’ said Amy.
‘And suppose I was ever to be mad enough to be angry with you?’
Amy smiled outright here. ‘Of course, I should deserve it; but I think the trouble would be the comforting you afterwards. Mamma said’—she added, after a long silence, during which Guy’s feeling would not let him speak—‘mamma said, and I think, that you are much safer and better with such a quick temper as yours, because you are always struggling and fighting with it, on the real true religious ground, than a person more even tempered by nature, but not so much in earnest in doing right.’
‘Yes, if I did not believe myself to be in earnest about that, I could never dare to speak to you at all.’
‘We will help each other,’ said Amy; ‘you have always helped me, long before we knew we cared for each other!’
‘And, Amy, if you knew how the thought of you helped me last winter, even when I thought I had forfeited you for ever.’