"I will keep quiet, certainly, because you yourself should keep so."
And then I gave her the wine, and covered her with the quilt to the throat; for although it was so warm, she had begun to shake and tremble as she lay. I held the wine to her lips, for she could not hold the glass; and while I did so, before she tasted, she said, with an emphasis I am very unlikely ever to forget,—
"I wish it could be poison."
I saw there was something the matter then, and as being responsible at that instant, I mechanically uttered the reply,—
"Will you not tell me why you wish it? I can mix poison; but I should be very sorry to give it to any one, and above all to you."
"Why to me? You would be doing more good than by going to hear all that music."
I gazed at her for one moment; a suspicion (which, had it been a certainty, would have failed to turn me from her) thwarted my simple pity. I gazed, and it was enough; I felt there was nothing I needed fear to know,—that child had never sinned against her soul. I therefore said, more carelessly than just then I felt:
"Miss Lemark, because you are gifted, because you are good, because you are innocent. It is not everybody who is either of these, and very few indeed are all the three. I will not have you talk just now, unless, indeed, you can tell me that I can do nothing for you. You know how slight my resources are, but you need not fear to trust me."
"If you did let me talk, what should I say? But you have told a lie,—or rather, I made you tell it. I am not gifted,—at least, my gifts are such as nobody really cares for. I am innocent? I am not innocent; and for the other word you used, I do not think I ought to speak it,—it no more belongs to me than beauty or than happiness."
"All that is beautiful belongs to all who love it, thank God, Miss Lemark, or I should be very poor indeed in that respect. But why are you so angry with yourself because, having gone through too much happiness, you are no longer happy? It must be so for all of us, and I do not regret, though I have felt it."