“Now I want Max. Let me rise and go down, for I must see Max.”
Then we two women looked at one another pitifully, and my sister, my happy sister who was to be married in a fortnight, took me in her arms, sobbing,
“Oh, Dora, my poor, poor child.”
All this seems years upon years ago, and I can relate it calmly enough, till I call to mind that sob of Penelope's.
Well, what happened next? I remember, Penelope came in when I was dressing, and told me, in her ordinary manner, that papa wished her to drive with him to the Cedars this morning. “Shall I go, Dora?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps you will see him in our absence.”
“I intend so.”
She turned, then came back and kissed me. I suppose she thought this meeting between Max and me would be an eternal farewell. The carriage had scarcely driven off, when I received a message that Doctor Urquhart was in the parlour.
Harry—Harry, twenty years dead—my own brother killed by my husband! Let me acknowledge. Had I known this before he was my betrothed husband, chosen open-eyed, with all my judgment, my conscience, and my soul, loved, not merely because he loved me, but because I loved him, honoured him, and trusted him, so that even marriage could scarcely make us more entirely one than we were already—had I been aware of this before, I might not, indeed I think I never should have loved him. Nature would have instinctively prevented me. But now it was too late. I loved him, and I could not unlove him: Nature herself forbade the sacrifice. It would have been like tearing my heart out of my bosom; he was half myself—and maimed of him, I should never have been my right self afterwards. Nor would he. Two living lives to be blasted for one that was taken unwittingly twenty years ago! Could it—ought it so to be?