'Please tear out the leaves, and burn it for me. I would not have one of the children see it on any account.'
Constance began to obey, and saw that it was a diary. 'Are you sure it ought to be done?' she asked. 'Might it not be better to wait till you are better?'
'I cannot tell that I shall be much less helpless. I know how things like this go,' she said.
Constance was still reluctant, and Mrs. Underwood added, 'I will tell you. It is nothing good, I assure you. When we drove from the door at Vale Leston, the home of all our lives, he turned to me and said, "Now, Mary, that page is shut for ever. Let us never speak a word to make the children or ourselves feel turned out of paradise." And I never did; but, oh! I wrote it. There are pages on pages of repinings there—I could not let them see it!'
'Nay, but you were resigned.'
'Resigned! What of that? I held my tongue! It was all I could do! I never knew things could be worse till I saw it was killing him, and then all I could do was still to keep silence.'
There was an agony in her voice that Constance had never heard there before.
'Silence was, no doubt—as things were—an exceeding kindness to him,' said Constance, 'and one that must have cost you much.'
'Once—once, so tenderly, with tears in his eyes, he did beg me as a favour not to complain, or talk of Fulbert Underwood! I did not; but I never could be the companion I was before to him. He was always happy, he did believe me so; but I could often only smile. If I talked, it could only have been of his health and our cares.'
'You kept him happy by taking the weight so entirely to yourself.'