Margaret rose very quietly, put her frame by in the corner, and left the room. Beatrice, who had been silent for some time, looked up then with expressive eyes.
“It is killing her, Eva. My father told me so a week since. He says he is quite sure that the Countess is mistaken in fancying that she is getting over it.”
“She! She is as strong as a horse. And I don’t think she ever felt it much! Not as I should have done. I should have taken the veil that very day. Earth would have been a dreary waste to me from that instant. I could not have borne to see a man again. However many years I might have lived, no sound but the Miserere—”
“But, Eva! I thought thou wert going to die in a month.”
“It is very rude to interrupt, Marie. No sound but the Miserere would ever have broken the chill echoes of my lonely cell, nor should any raiment softer than sackcloth have come near my seared and blighted heart!”
“I should think it would get seared, with nothing but sackcloth,” put in the irrepressible little Lady of Eu.
“But what good would all that do, Eva?”
“Good, Beatrice! What canst thou mean? I tell thee, I could not have borne any thing else.”
“I don’t believe much in thy sackcloth, Eva. Thou wert making ever such a fuss the other day because the serge of thy gown touched thy neck and rubbed it, and Levina ran a ribbon down to keep it off thee.”
“Don’t be impertinent, Marie. Of course, in such a case as that, I could not think of mere inconveniences.”