“You wait a bit, my dear, and then talk about forgiveness by-and-by. You’ve got to stay with your poor mother now. Why, if you left her on such an errand as that, what would happen if he kept you, and wouldn’t let you come back?”
Julia’s eyes dilated, and her careworn face grew paler.
“He would not do that.”
“He and that Crellock would do anything, I believe. There, you can’t do that now. You’ve got to sit and watch by her.”
“Julia!” came in an excited voice from the next room.
“There, what did I tell you, my dear?” said Thisbe; and she hurried Julia back and closed the door.
“They’ll go back and forgive him if he only comes and begs them to, and he’ll finish breaking her heart,” said Thisbe, as she went down. “Oh, there never was anything so dreadful as a woman’s weakness when once she has loved a man. But go back they shall not if I can help it, and what to do for the best I don’t know.”
She went into the little sitting-room, seated herself, and began rolling her apron up tightly, as she rocked herself to and fro, and all the time kept on biting her lips.
“I daren’t,” she said. “She would never forgive me if she knew. No, I couldn’t.”
She went on rocking herself to and fro.