Through One Administration

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

"I do not want it," said Agnes, calmly. "I have done with such things, and he is not the man to change."

"He must," said Bertha, "in time—if I am very unflinching and clever. They always said I was clever, you know, and that I had wonderful control over myself. But I shall have to be very clever. The only thing which will make him throw me aside is the firm belief that I am worth nothing,—the belief that I am false, and shallow, and selfish, and as wicked as such a slight creature can be. Let me hide the little that is good in me, and show him always, day by day, what is bad. There is enough of that, and in the end he must get tired of me, and show me that he has done with me forever."

"You cannot do it," said Agnes, breathlessly.

"I cannot do it for long, I know that; but I can do it for a while, and then I will make Richard let me go away—to Europe. I have asked him before, but he seemed so anxious to keep me—I cannot tell why—and I have never opposed or disobeyed him. I try to be a good wife in such things as that. I ought to be a good wife in something. Just now he has some reason for wishing me to remain here. He does not always tell me his reasons. But perhaps in the spring he will not object to my going, and one can always spend a year or so abroad; and when he joins us, as he will afterward, he will be sure to be fascinated, and in the end we might stay away for years, and if we ever come back all will be over, and—and I shall be forgotten."

She withdrew herself from her friend's arms, and rose to her feet.

"I shall be forgotten—forgotten!" she said. "Oh! how can I be! How can such pain pass away and end in nothing! Just while everything is at the worst, it is not easy to remember that one only counts for one, after all, and that a life is such a little thing. It seems so much to one's self. And yet what does it matter that Bertha Amory's life went all wrong, and was only a bubble that was tossed away and broken? There are such millions and millions of people that it means nothing, only to Bertha Amory, and it cannot mean anything to her very long. Only just while it lasts—and before one gets used to—to the torture of it"—

She turned away and crossed the room to the window, drawing aside the curtain.

"There is a little streak of light in the East," she said. "It is the day, and you have not slept at all."

Agnes went to her, and they stood and looked at it together,—a faint, thin line of gray tinged with palest yellow.

"To-morrow has come," said Bertha. "And we must begin the New Year properly. I must make up my visiting-book and arrange my lists. Don't—don't call any one, Agnes—it is only—faintness." And with the little protesting smile on her lips she sank to the floor.