That was one of the bad moments.
“How could you hurt me?” he asked. “You have never hurt me.”
She still did not look at him, but lay with her cheek on the pillow. She felt that he had more to say, though the words ceased.
“Yes?” she said. “Go on.”
“Oh, whenever I thought you hurt me, I knew at once it was not you,” he said.
Then she looked at him.
“No, my darling, it was not,” she said. “Do try to remember that.”
“There is no trying and no remembering,” he said.
It was on that morning that golden days began again. Week by week Edith had steadily improved. A few little set-backs had come, but still the tide flowed. All her determination to get well had come back to her; her will was no longer apathetic, watching the course of events, but active, directing them.
And to-day, for the first time, by permission, she was to come down to the rink where Hugh and Peggy sat, and see them attempt to pass the skating-test which would admit them on to the English rink. It is impossible to say to whom—themselves, Edith, or the English community in general—their passing seemed most important, but probably to them. Daisy was coming up for judgment, too, but it was quite certain that she would pass. The case of her mother and uncle, however was far more open to doubt. Peggy, sycophantically, had induced Edith to ask the two amiable gentlemen, who were going to judge their capacity, to dinner last night, and had been almost loathsomely fulsome to them. The doors of Rye House, she had really given them to understand, starved for their presence. And must the unemployed leg be absolutely still? If she moved it ever so little she could make the turn, too beautifully.... Oh! yes she was sure that Hugh would be only too honoured to sing at the concert at the Belvedere in aid of—oh, quite so, the Colonial Chaplaincy Fund.