"Ah!" I gasp, affrightedly. "I remember! I know it all now. I can see her again! She said—But," seizing mother's wrists fiercely, "It is not true, mother? Oh mother! say it is not true! Oh! mother! mother!"
"Phyllis, my child—my lamb! what shall I say to comfort you?"
"Deny it!" I cry, passionately flinging my arms around her waist, and throwing back my head that I may watch her face. Poor face! so filled with the bitterest of all griefs, the want of power to solace those we love. "Why do you cry? Why don't you say at once it was a lie? You are as bad as Marmaduke; he stood there too, deaf as a stick or a stone to my entreaties. Oh, will no one help me? Oh, it is true then!—it is true!"
I push her from me, and, burying my head on my arms rock myself to and fro, in a silent agony of despair. Not a sound breaks the stillness, but mother's low suppressed sobbing; it maddens me.
"What are you crying for?" I ask, roughly, raising my tearless face; "my eyes are dry. It is my sorrow, not yours not any one's. What do you mean by making moan?"
She makes no answer, and my head drops once more upon my arms. I continue my ceaseless, miserable rocking. Again there is silence.
A door bangs somewhere in the distance.
"I will not see him!" I cry, starting up wildly "Nothing on earth shall induce me. I cannot, mother. Tell him he must not come in here."
"Darling, he is not coming. But even if he were, Phyllis, surely you would be kind to him. If you could only see his despair! He was quite innocent of it. Phyllis, I implore you, do not foster bitter thoughts in your heart towards Marmaduke."
"It is not that. You mistake me. Only—it is all so horrible—I fear to see him. Yesterday he was my husband—no, no—I mean I thought he was my husband; to-day what is he?"