“Yes,” said Charles Fairfield, abstractedly; “of course that miserable woman sticks at no assertion; her idea is simply to bully her way to her object. It doesn’t matter what she says, and it never surprised me. I always knew if she lived she’d give me trouble one day; but that’s all; just trouble, but no more; not the slightest chance of succeeding—not the smallest; she knows it; I know it. The only thing that vexes me is that people who know all about it as well as I do, and people who, of all others, should feel for me, and feel with me, should talk as if they had doubts upon the subject now.”
“I didn’t say so, Master Charles,” said Mildred.
“I didn’t mean you, I meant others, quite a different person; I’m utterly miserable; at a more unlucky moment all this could not have happened by any possibility.”
“Well, I’m sure I never said it; I never thought but one thing of her; the foul-tongued wicked beast.”
“Don’t you talk that way of her,” said Charles, savagely. “Whatever she is she has suffered, she has been cruelly used, and I am to blame for all. I did not mean it, but it is all my fault.”
Mrs. Tarnley sneered, but said nothing, and a silence followed.
“I know,” he said, in a changed way, “you mean kindly to me.”
“Be kind to yourself. I hold it’s the best way in this bleak world, Mr. Charles. I never was thanked for kindness yet.”
“You have always been true to me, Mildred, in your own way—in your own way, mind, but always true, and I’ll show you yet, if I’m spared, that I can be grateful. You know how I am now—no power to serve any one—no power to show my regard.”
“I don’t complain o’ nothing,” said Mildred.