Horatia went on again, almost inaudibly. "I hear him crying out, in the night when I wake, 'Leave your scruples, Laurence, she does not believe me,' and then again, 'Why do you send for Horatia ... she would not care ... I am nothing to her now; she told me so.'"
Her listener had himself put his hand over his eyes, but he gave no sign, and at last Horatia finished.
"He would not forgive me ... he said there was nothing to forgive ... and I have felt—I still feel—that God has not forgiven me, that He has punished me, and that He will go on punishing me."
She had been speaking in a very low voice, and there was now hardly a sound outside. Inside the room there was the sort of silence that could be cut. It might have been lasting for centuries or for seconds—Horatia could not tell—when Dormer broke it.
"I will not ask you if you have been able to forgive that unhappy lady, who you say was once your friend, but are you able sometimes to feel compassion for her?"
"I doubt if I know what you mean by forgiveness," answered Horatia. "I only know that once, perhaps, I hoped that she might suffer, because I had suffered so much, and that now I cannot bear to think of what she is doing at this moment."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, I did not tell you. I was staying some weeks ago with a friend in Devonshire, and we had to take a letter to a convent near, a convent of French nuns. There was a novice scrubbing some flags; she did not see me, but I saw her, and it was Laurence, Laurence whom I had not seen since ... since..."
"I understand."
"Laurence," went on Horatia fiercely, "who was more sinned against than sinning.... Yes, I know that now! I have always known it, but I tried to excuse my husband. Laurence was rich and admired, and could have everything she wanted, and now she has not enough to eat, and she does menial work, and spends hours in prayer—and all for Armand's soul. It is an order of perpetual intercession. And I who was his wife—I am feeling that life holds very little for me because I cannot marry Tristram! What is there to forgive now!"