"Oh, Barty, my darling—how things have gone wrong between us! Is it all my doing? Oh, I hope not!..." And she kissed him.
"How like, how like! And you're getting a little black and bulgy under the eyes—especially the left one—and so did he, at just about your age! And how thin you are!"
"I don't think anything need ever go wrong between us again, Aunt Caroline! I am a very altered person, and a very unlucky one!"
"Tell me, dear!"
And he told her all his story, from the fatal quarrel with her brother Lord Archibald—and the true history of that quarrel; and all that had happened since: he had nothing to keep back.
She frequently wept a little, for truth was in every tone of his voice; and when it came to the story of his lost eye, she wept very much indeed. And his need of affection, of female affection especially, and of kinship, was so immense that he clung to this most kind and loving woman as if she'd been his mother come back from the grave, or his dear Lady Archibald.
This meeting made a great difference to Barty in many ways—made amends! Lady Caroline meant to pass the winter at Malines, of all places in the world. The Archbishop was her friend, and she was friends also with one or two priests at the seminary there. She was by no means rich, having but an annuity of not quite three hundred a year; and it soon became the dearest wish of her heart that Barty should live with her for a while, and be nursed by her if he wanted nursing; and she thought he did. Besides, it would be convenient on account of
"'I AM A VERY ALTERED PERSON!'"