“But I will not stay to be tyrannised over, or insulted by hypocritical pity. I will neither eat your bread, nor live upon the cowardly charity of—— the man who is dead. I intend to work for my own maintenance; most likely, to offer myself as a teacher in the school where I was brought up. I tell you this plainly; though I tell you, at the same time, that if you dare to seek me there, or drag me thence.—— But no! you will be glad to be freed from me forever.
“One thing only I regret; that, in justice to my own mother, I must no longer think tenderly of yours. For yourself all is ended between us. Pardon I neither ask nor grant; I only say, Farewell.
“Christal Manners.”
The letter was afterwards apparently re-opened, and a hasty postscript added:
“Tell Lyle Derwent that I have gone for ever; or, still better, that I am dead. But if you dare to tell him anything more, I will hunt you through the world, but I will be revenged.”
Mrs. Gwynne read this letter aloud. It awoke in the stern, upright, God-fearing Scotswoman, less of pity, than a solemn sense of retributive justice, which she could scarcely repress, even though it involved the condemnation of him whose memory was mingled with the memories of her youth.
But Olive, more gentle, tried to wash away her dead father's guilt with tears; and for her living sister she offered unto Heaven that beseeching never offered in vain, a pure heart's humble prayers.
CHAPTER XLV.
Many a consultation was held between Mrs. Gwynne and Olive, as to what must be done concerning that hapless child: for little more than a child she was in years, though her miserable destiny had nurtured in her so much of woman's suffering, and more than woman's sin. Yet still, when Olive read the reference to Mrs. Rothesay, she thought there might yet be a lingering angel sitting in poor Christal's heart.