“I knew it was that,” she cried. “I knew it the moment Mr. Gowan told me. And I have feared it from the first. Nothing but that could have broken you down like this. Dolly, if Grif could see you now, he would give his heart's blood to undo what he has done.”
The pale little hands lying upon the black dress began to tremble in a strange, piteous weakness.
“One cannot forget so much in so short a time,” Dolly pleaded. “And it is so much,—more than even you think. One cannot forget seven years in three months,—give me seven months, Aimée. I shall be better in time, when I have forgotten.”
Forgotten! Even those far duller of perception than Aimée could have seen that she would not soon forget. She had not begun in the right way to forget. The pain which had made the pretty figure and the soft, round face look faintly worn, was sharper to-day than it had been even three months before, and it was gaining in sharpness every day, nay, every hour.
“The days are so long,” she said, plaiting the silk of her dress on-the restless hands. “We are so quiet, except when we have visitors, and somehow visitors begin to tire me. I scarcely ever knew what it was to be tired before. I don't care even to scatter the Philistines now,” trying to smile. “I am not even roused by the prospect of meeting Lady Augusta tonight. I forgot to tell you she was coming, did n't I? How she would triumph if she knew how I have fallen and—and how miserable I am! She used to say I had not a thought above the cut of my dresses. She never knew about—him, poor fellow!”
It was curious to see how she still clung to that tender old pitying way of speaking of Grif.
Aimee began to cry over her again.
“You must come home, Dolly,” she said. “You must, indeed. You will get worse and worse if you stay here. I will speak to Miss MacDowlas myself. You say she is kind to you.”
“Dear little woman,” said Dolly, closing her eyes as she let her head rest upon the girl's shoulder. “Dear, kind little woman! indeed it will be best for me to stay here. It is as I said,—indeed it is. If I were to go home I should die! Oh, don't you know how cruel it would be! To sit there in my chair and see his old place empty,—to sit and hear the people passing in the street and know I should never hear his footstep again,—to see the door open again and again, and know he would never, never pass through. It would break my heart,—it would break my heart!”
“It is broken now!” cried Aimée, in a burst of grief, and she could protest no more.