"She would have been a severe loss."
"Severe, indeed." By this time Felix is beginning to feel like an advanced hypocrite.
"As for Margaret Maliphant, I am afraid he was more concerned about the loss of her bonds and scrips than of herself. It is a terrible world, Felix, when all is told," says she, suddenly crossing her beautiful long white hands over her knees, and leaning toward him. There is a touch of misery so sharp in her voice that he starts as he looks at her. It is a momentary fit of emotion, however, and passes before he dare comment on it. With a heart nigh to breaking she still retains her composure and talks calmly to Felix, and lets him talk to her, as though the fact that she is soon to lose forever the man who once had gained her heart—that fatal "once" that means for always, in spite of everything that has come and gone—is as little or nothing to her. Seeing her sitting there, strangely pale indeed, but so collected, it would be impossible to guess at the tempest of passion and grief and terror that reigns within her breast. Women are not so strong to bear as men, and therefore in the world's storms suffer most.
"It is a lovely world," says he smiling, thinking of Joyce, and then, remembering her sad lot, his smile fades. "One might make—perhaps—a bad world—better," he says, stammering.
"Ah! teach me how," says she with a melancholy glance.
"There is such a thing as forgiveness. Forgive him!" blurts he out in a frightened sort of way. He is horrified, at himself—at his own temerity—a second later, and rises to his feet as if to meet the indignation he has certainly courted. But to his surprise no such indignation betrays itself.
"Is that your advice?" says she, still with the thin white hands clasped over the knee, and the earnest gaze on him. "Well, well, well!"
Her eyes droop. She seems to be thinking, and he, gazing at her, refrains from speech with his heart sad with pity. Presently she lifts her head and looks at him.
"There! Go back to your love," she says with a glance that thrills him. "Tell her from me that if you had the whole world to choose from, I should still select her as your wife. I like her; I love her! There, go!" She seems to grow all at once very tired. Are those tears that are rising in her eyes? She holds out to him her hand.
Felix, taking it, holds it closely for a moment, and presently, as if moved to do it, he stoops and presses a warm kiss upon it.