She paused and sank into a wearied sitting posture, resting her cheek against the sofa cushion.
"It seems so long ago—so long ago," she said; "and yet it is not one short year since."
She went on almost monotonously.
"He saw the change in me,—I knew that,—though he did not know what it meant. I suppose he thought the bad side of me had developed instead of the good, because the bad had predominated in the first place."
"He never thought that," Agnes interposed. "Never!"
"Don't you think so?" said Bertha. "Well, it was not my fault if he didn't. I don't know whether it was natural or not that I should always make the worst of myself before him; but I always did. I did not want him to come to the house; but Richard brought him again and again, until he had been so often that there must have been some serious reasons if he had stayed away. And then—and then"—
"What then?" said Agnes.
She made a gesture of passionate impatience.
"Oh, I don't know," she said, "I don't know! I began to be restless and unhappy. I did not care for going out, and I dared not stay at home. When I was alone I used to sit and think of that first winter, and compare myself with the Bertha who lived then as if she had been another creature,—some one I had been fond of, and who had died in some sad, unexpected way while she was very young. I used to be angry because I found myself so easily moved,—things touched me which had never touched me before; and one day, as I was singing a little German song of farewell,—that poor little, piteous 'Auf Wiedersehn' we all know,—suddenly my voice broke, and I gave a helpless sob, and the tears streamed down my cheeks. It filled me with terror. I have never been a crying woman, and I have rather disliked people who cried. When I cried I knew that some terrible change had come upon me, and I hated myself for it. I told myself I was ill, and I said I would go away; but Richard wished me to remain. And every day it was worse and worse. And when I was angry with myself I revenged myself on the person I should have spared. When I said things of myself which were false he had a way of looking at me as if he was simply waiting to hear what I would say next, and I never knew whether he believed me or not, and I resented that more than all the rest."
She broke off for an instant, and then began again hurriedly.