“Forgive me, forgive me for my cruelty, my dearest Agnes,” she whispered. “Ah, my dearest, you are the only friend I have in the world, and what have I said to you? You will forgive me—you know that I am not myself to-day—that I do not know what I say!”
Agnes put down her face to the girl's and kissed her. It was some time, however, before she could speak, and in the meantime Clare was sobbing in her arms.
What was Agnes to say to comfort her? What words could she speak in her ears that would soothe her? She could only express the thought which was nestling in her own heart and seemed to give her some consolation in the midst of all the bitterness of life:
“My Clare—my Clare—we shall always be together. Whatever may happen, nothing can sunder us.”
And the girl was comforted. She was comforted, for she wept on Agnes's shoulder for a long time, and Agnes knew the consolation that comes through tears.
When she lifted up her head from its resting-place she was able to say:
“I will ask for nothing more, my dear Agnes. I will ask for nothing better to come to me than this—to be with you always—to feel that you will be ever near. You will not turn from me, dear—you will not cry out for some one to take me away?”
She could actually say the words now with a smile. She had, indeed, been comforted.
“I will take care of you,” said Agnes. “I will take care that no one shall come between us. We shall go away from here to-morrow, if you wish—anywhere you please. I know of some beautiful places along the shores of the Mediterranean. You and I shall go to one of them and stay there just as long as we please. Then we can cross to Africa. You have never been in Algiers. I was there once with my father. Everything you see there is strange. That is the place which we must seek. Sunshine in January—sunshine and warmth when the east wind is making every one miserable in England.”
“I was hoping to see an English spring,” said Clare, wistfully. “But I will go with you,” she cried, with suddenly brightening eyes. “Oh yes; I feel that I must go somewhere—somewhere—anywhere, so long as it is away from here.”