She gave a toss of impatience. "I'll leave you to discover!" But the grand truth thus made out she had now completely adopted. "It's for US, therefore, to be hers."
"'Hers'?"
"You and I. It's for us to be Charlotte's. It's for us, on our side, to see HER through."
"Through her sublimity?"
"Through her noble, lonely life. Only—that's essential—it mustn't be lonely. It will be all right if she marries."
"So we're to marry her?"
"We're to marry her. It will be," Mrs. Assingham continued, "the great thing I can do." She made it out more and more. "It will make up."
"Make up for what?" As she said nothing, however, his desire for lucidity renewed itself. "If everything's so all right what is there to make up for?"
"Why, if I did do either of them, by any chance, a wrong. If I made a mistake."
"You'll make up for it by making another?" And then as she again took her time: "I thought your whole point is just that you're sure."