She bent her head down upon the coloured marbles of the high mantelpiece, and looked into the fire.
Clare came behind her, laying a hand carelessly upon her shoulder.
Agnes started and shrank from the touch of her hand.
“Do not caress me,” she sad. “I was to blame. It was I who should have seen all that every one else must have seen; I should have seen and warned you. I should have sent you away—taken you away before it was too late. I should have stood between you and him. But I was selfish—blinded by my own selfishness.”
“Why should you have stood between us?” asked the girl, with a puzzled expression. “Oh, you cannot possibly be talking about him and me: no one in one's senses would talk about standing between us. Heavens above! Ah, tell me that you do not mean him and me—to stand between Claude and me? I warn you before you speak that nothing that lives—no power of life or death—shall stand between us. If he were to die I should die too. I know what love is.”
“And I know what Fate is. My poor child, my poor child! You have done no wrong. You are wholly innocent. If you go away you may still save yourself—yourself and him.”
The girl laughed again.
“For God's sake don't laugh; let me entreat of you,” cried Agnes, almost piteously.
“My poor Agnes,” said Clare, “I pity you if you have any thought that you can separate us now. I will not ask you what is on your mind—what foolish notion you have about a mésalliance. Of course I know as well as you can tell me that yesterday I was a nobody; but I am different to-day. I am the woman that Claude Westwood loves, and if you fancy that that woman is a nobody you are sadly mistaken.”
“Child—child—if you knew all!”