“You suffer! happy as they tell me you are—you, with your home and your husband!”
“Ah, Christal, even my husband grieves—my husband, who would do anything in the whole world for your peace. You have forgotten Harold.”
A softness came over Christal's face. “No, I have not forgotten him. Day and night I pray for him who saved more than my life—my soul. For that deed may God bless him!—and God pardon me.”
She said this, shuddering, too, as at some awful memory. After a while, she spoke to Olive in a gentler tone, for the first time lifting her eyes to her sister's face.
“You seem well in health, and you have a peaceful look. I am glad of it—I am glad you are happy, and married to Harold Gwynne. He told me of his love for you.”
“But he could not tell you all. If I am happy, I have suffered too. We must all suffer, some time; but suffering ends in time.”
“Not with me—not with me. But I desire not to talk of myself.”
“Shall I talk then about your friend Harold—your brother? He told me to say he would ever be so to you,” said Olive, striving to awaken Christal's sympathies. And she partly succeeded; for her sister listened quietly, and with some show of interest, while she spoke of Harold and of their dear home.
“It is so near you, too; we can hear the convent bells when we walk in our pretty garden. You must come and see it, Christal.”
“No, no; I have rest here; I will never go beyond these walls. As soon as I am twenty-one I shall become a nun, and then I, with all my sorrows, will be buried out of sight for evermore.”