She sat knitting in the summer-parlour alone. The doctor was out; Mrs. Jessop I saw down the long garden, bonnetted and shawled, busy among her gooseberry-bushes—so we were safe.
As I have said, Ursula sat knitting, but her eyes had a soft dreaminess. My entrance had evidently startled her, and driven some sweet, shy thought away.
But she met me cordially—said she was glad to see me—that she had not seen either of us lately; and the knitting pins began to move quickly again.
Those dainty fingers—that soft, tremulous smile—I could have hated her!
"No wonder you did not see us, Miss March; John has been very ill, is ill now—almost dying."
I hurled the words at her, sharp as javelins, and watched to see them strike.
They struck—they wounded; I could see her shiver.
"Ill!—and no one ever told me!"
"You? How could it affect you? To me, now"—and my savage words, for they were savage, broke down in a burst of misery—"nothing in this world to me is worth a straw in comparison with John. If he dies—"
I let loose the flood of my misery. I dashed it over her, that she might see it—feel it; that it might enter all the fair and sightly chambers of her happy life, and make them desolate as mine. For was she not the cause?