"She has therefore decided—and I am not much surprised—that she would rather have a home of her own."
"And you abet her in this?"
"Not at all, I think she had much better stay with you; I am only explaining to you how she feels."
"I don't know that I care to understand Margaret Cruger's feelings."
"Exactly; you don't. And therefore she is going."
Aunt Katrina was evidently struggling with her own thoughts. He left her to the contest.
At last, "Poor child!" she said, sighing, as she gently pressed a handkerchief to different parts of her disordered countenance—"poor child!"
Winthrop waited for further developments; he knew they would come.
"It is natural that I should have been cold to her, perhaps, feeling as I did so keenly how unqualified she was to make a congenial home for Lanse. But, as you say, probably she cannot help it, it is her disposition. And now, to think what she must be feeling!—she has, in her way, a strict conscience, and to-day she faces the fact that, by her own utter want of sympathy (which I suppose she really cannot help), she has driven her husband away a second time, sent him a second time into bad courses! I realize, indeed, that it is the moment when I ought to do everything I can for her, when I should stifle my own feelings, and treat her with the greatest tenderness; don't you agree with me?"
"Fully. But even then I don't know that you can induce her to stay."