"It was right they should know," she said in a low and dreamy tone; "and Canon Pascal makes no difficulty of it?"
"Canon Pascal said to me," answered Phebe, "that your noble life and the fame you had won atoned for the error of which Felix and Hilda's father had been guilty. He said they were your children, brought up under your training and example, not their father's. Why do you dwell so bitterly upon the past? It is all forgotten now."
"Not by me," murmured Felicita, "nor by you, Phebe."
"No; I have never forgotten him," cried Phebe, with a passionate sorrow in her voice. "How good he was to me, and to all about him! Yes, he was guilty of a sin before God and against man; I know it. But oh! if he had only suffered the penalty, and come back to us again, for us to comfort him, and to help him to live down the shame! Possibly we could not have done it in Riversborough; I do not know; but I would have gone with you, as your servant, to the ends of the earth, and you would have lived happy days again—happier than the former days. And he would have proved himself a good man, in spite of his sin; a Christian man, whom Christ would not have been ashamed to own."
"No, no," said Felicita; "that is impossible. I never loved Roland; can you believe that, Phebe?"
"Yes," she answered in a whisper, and with downcast eyes.
"Not as I think of love," continued Felicita in a dreary voice. "I have tried to love you all; but you seem so far away from me, as if I could never touch you. Even Felix and Hilda, they are like phantom children, who do not warm my heart, or gladden it, as other mothers are made happy by their children. Sometimes I have dreamed of what life would have been if I had given myself to some man for whom I would have forfeited the world, and counted the loss as nothing. But that is past now, and I feel old. There is nothing more before me; all is gray and flat and cold, a desolate monotony of years, till death comes."
"You make me unhappy," said Phebe. "Ought we not to love God first, and man for God's sake? There is no passion in that; but there is inexhaustible faithfulness and tenderness."
"How far away from me you are!" answered Felicita with a faint smile.
She turned her sad face again towards the sea, and sat silent, watching the flitting sails pass by, but holding Phebe's hand fast in her own, as if she craved her companionship. Phebe, too, was silent, the tears dimming her blue eyes and blotting out the scene before her. Her heart was very heavy and troubled for Felicita.