'Oh,' she said, leaning forward and looking at him fixedly, 'take this nightmare off my brain, or I shall go mad! It isn't true; it cannot be true. But—oh! yes, it's true enough.'
'Like you, Julia, I am overwhelmed; but we can do nothing.'
'Do nothing!' she cried; 'do nothing! We can do nothing but pray for her—we who sacrificed her.' And she slipped on her knees and burst into a passionate fit of weeping.
'The best thing that could have happened,' thought Hubert; and his thought said, clearly and precisely, 'Yes; it is awful, shocking, cruel beyond measure!'
The fire was sinking, and he built it up quietly, ashamed of this proof of his regard for physical comfort, and hoping it would pass unnoticed. His pain expressed itself less vehemently than Julia's; but for all that his mind ached. He remembered how he had taken everything from her—fortune, happiness, and now life itself. It was an appalling tragedy—one of those senseless cruelties which we find nature constantly inventing. A thought revealed an unexpected analogy between him and his victim. In both lives there had been a supreme desire, and both had failed. 'Hers was the better part,' he said bitterly. 'Those whose souls are burdened with desire that may not be gratified had better fling the load aside. They are fools who carry it on to the end.... If it were not for Julia——'
Then he sought to determine what were his exact feelings. He knew he was infinitely sorry for poor Emily; but he could not stir himself into a paroxysm of grief, and, ashamed of his inability to express his feelings, he looked at Julia, who still wept.
'No doubt,' he thought, 'women have keener feelings than we have.'
At that moment Julia got up from her knees. She had brushed away her tears. Her face was shaken with grief.
'My heart is breaking,' she said. 'This is too cruel—too cruel! And on my wedding night.'
Their eyes met; and, divining each other's thought, each felt ashamed, and Julia said—