Aunt Martha was dressed in sober black. Her face was very comely; for the hardness that came with a morbid and mistaken zeal was mellowed, and the sadness of experience softened it.
“I have lived not far from you, Lucia, all these long years.”
“Martha! and you did not come to me?”
“I did not dare. Listen, Lucia. If a woman who had always gratified her love of admiration, and gloried in the power of gratifying it—who conquered men and loved to conquer them—who was a woman of ungoverned will and indomitable pride, should encounter—as how often they do?—a man who utterly conquered her, and betrayed her through the very weakness that springs from pride, do you not see that such a woman would go near to insanity—as I have been—believing that I had committed the unpardonable sin, and that no punishment could be painful enough?”
Mrs. Bennet looked alarmed.
“No, no; there is no reason,” said her sister, observing it.
“The man came. I could not resist him. There was a form of marriage. I believed that it was I who had conquered. He left me; my child was born. I appealed to Lawrence Newt, our old friend and playmate. He promised me faithful secrecy, and through him the child was sent where Gabriel was at school. Then I withdrew from both. I thought it was the will of God. I felt myself commanded to a living death—dead to every friend and kinsman—dead to every thing but my degradation and its punishment; and yet consciously close to you, near to all old haunts and familiar faces—lost to them all—lost to my child—” Her voice faltered, and the tears gushed from her eyes. “But I persevered. The old passionate pride was changed to a kind of religious frenzy. Lawrence Newt went and came to and from India. I was utterly lost to the world. I knew that my child would never know me, for Lawrence had promised that he would not betray me; and when I disappeared from his view, Lawrence gradually came to consider me dead. Then Amy discovered me among the poor souls she visited, and through Amy Lawrence Newt; and by them I have been led out of the valley of the shadow of death, and see the blessed light of love once more.”
She bowed her head in uncontrollable emotion.
“And your son?” said her sister, half-smiling through her sympathetic tears.
“Will be yours also, Amy tells me,” said Aunt Martha. “Thank God! thank God!”