“That is right. Don't listen to Dora—she always hated me. Listen to me. Penelope, you shall make me anything you choose; you would be the saving of me—that is, if you could put up with such a broken, sickly, ill-tempered wretch.”
“Poor Francis!” and she just touched him with her hand.
He caught it and kept it. Then Penelope seemed to wake up as out of a dream.
“You must not,” she said hurriedly; “you must not hold my hand.”
“Why not?”
“Because I, do not love you any more.”
It was so; he could not doubt it. The vainest man alive must, I think, have discerned at once that my sister spoke out of neither caprice or revenge, but in simple sadness of truth. Francis must have felt almost by instinct that, whether broken or not, the heart so long his, was his no longer—the love was gone.
Whether the mere knowledge of this made his own revive, or whether finding himself in the old familiar places—this walk was a favourite walk of theirs—the whole feeling returned in a measure, I cannot tell; I do not like to judge. But I am certain that, for the time, Francis suffered acutely.
“Do you hate me then?” said he at length.
“No; on the contrary, I feel very kindly towards you. There is nothing in the world I would not do for you.”