"I think of that true-hearted creature praying and longing for her sister, and fearing there's shame—that's why she hates me. I wouldn't say I was certain her sister had not fallen into a pit. I couldn't. I was an idiot. I thought I wouldn't be a hypocrite. I might have said I believed as she did. There she stood ready to be taken—ready to have given herself to me, if I had only spoken a word! It was a moment of heaven, and God the Father could not give it to me twice The chance has gone.
"Oh! what a miserable mad dog I am to gabble on in this way.—Come in! come in, mother."
Mrs. Boulby entered, with soft footsteps, bearing a letter.
"From the Park," she said, and commenced chiding Robert gently, to establish her right to do it with solemnity.
"He will talk, sir. He's one o' them that either they talk or they hang silent, and no middle way will they take; and the doctor's their foe, and health they despise; and since this cruel blow, obstinacy do seem to have been knocked like a nail into his head so fast, persuasion have not a atom o' power over him."
"There must be talking when friends meet, ma'am," said Major Waring.
"Ah!" returned the widow, "if it wouldn't be all on one side."
"I've done now, mother," said Robert.
Mrs. Boulby retired, and Robert opened the letter.
It ran thus:—