He was silent, and his silence frightened me. I had felt that I was partly to blame. His silence made me feel that I was wholly to blame, and that he thought so.
"If I could only undo it," I said, in what little voice I could muster.
"If you only could," he muttered.
I was utterly crushed. Every bit of my courage fled, and—but what's the use of trying to describe it? It was as if I had tried to murder her and had come to my senses and was realizing what I'd done.
I suppose I must have shown what was in my mind, for, all of a sudden, with a sort of sob or groan, he put his arms round me—such a strong yet such a gentle clasp! "Don't look like that, dear!" he pleaded. "Forgive me—it was cowardly, what I said—and not true. We're all to blame—you the least. Haven't I seen, day after day, how you've done everything you could to spare her—how you've worn yourself out?"
He let me go as suddenly as he had seized me.
"I'm not fit to be called a man!" he exclaimed. "Just because I loved you, and was always thinking of you, and watching you, and worrying about you, I neglected to think of mother. If I'd given her a single thought I'd have known long ago that she was ill."
Just then Mrs. Burke's maid called me—she was only a few yards away, and must have seen everything. I hurried back to the room we had quitted a few minutes before. "You must cheer up those two big, foolish men, child," she said. "You all think I'm going to pass over, but I'm not. You won't get rid of me for many a year. And I rely on you to prevent them from going all to pieces."
She paused and looked at me wistfully, as if she longed to say something but was afraid she had no right to. I said: "What is it—ma?"
Her face brightened. "Come, kiss me," she murmured. "Thank you for saying that. We're very different in lots of ways, being raised so different. But hearts have a way of finding each other, haven't they?"