Mary was going to ask what exact amount of personal suffering being dropped on to like blazes involved; but Charles stopped her, and took her hand.
"Mary dear," he said, "do you ever think of the future?"
"Night and day, Charles,—night and day."
"If he dies, Mary? When he dies?"
"Night and day, brother," she answered, taking one of his great brown hands between her two white little palms. "I dream in my sleep of the new regime which is to come, and I see only trouble, and again trouble."
"And then?"
"There is a God in heaven, Charles."
"Ay, but Mary, what will you do?"
"I?" and she laughed the merriest little laugh ever you heard. "Little me? Why, go for a governess, to be sure. Charles, they shall love me so that this life shall be a paradise. I will go into a family where there are two beautiful girls; and, when I am old and withered, there shall be two nurseries in which I shall be often welcome, where the children shall come babbling to my knee, the darlings, and they shall tell me how they love me, almost as well as their mother. There is my future. Would you change it?"
Charles was leaning against the oak banister; and, when he saw her there before him, when he saw that valiant, true-hearted face, in the light which streamed from the old window above, he was rebuked, and bent down his head on the rail. The Dean's letter of that morning had done something; but the sight of that brave little woman, so fearless with all the world before her, did more. She weak, friendless, moneyless, and so courageous! He with the strong arm, so cowardly! It taught him a lesson indeed, a lesson he never forgot. But oh! for that terrible word—too late!