"What is all that about?" asked Kate, astonished.
I threw my arms around her neck and told her, weeping all the time. She reproved and yet comforted me.
"It was wrong," she said, "wrong and foolish to be rude to Miss Russell; but do not fret, child, though Cornelius may be vexed, he is fond of you in his heart."
"Not as much as he once was, Kate."
She did not contradict the bitter truth.
"It will never be the same thing again," I continued.
"As if I did not know it!" she exclaimed, involuntarily perhaps.
I looked up into her face. She too had seen and felt that Cornelius was not to us what he once had been. She smiled sorrowfully as our looks met, pressed me to her heart and kissed me. Woman-grown though she was, and child though I might be, there was between us the bond of the same secret pain and sorrow.
CHAPTER XV.
Thus began the short and bitter contest between Miriam and me. I apologized to her, humbly enough, on the following day; but in domestic life, reconciliations seem only to lead to fresh quarrels; to make it up is nothing; whilst the spirit remains unchanged, strife cannot cease. I continued to be jealous of Miriam; she continued to resent every poor attempt I made to secure the love and attention of him whose every thought and feeling she wished to engross. I loved him too ardently, and I was too rash and proud, to bear this passively. My persistency cost me dear: I was daily wounded in the most tender and sensitive point—the affection and the regard of Cornelius. I had faults, no doubt, but Cornelius never seemed to have perceived them as he now perceived them: how could he? before, they slumbered in peace, lulled by the love I felt for him and that which he felt for me, whereas now they were—not pointed out to him, she had too much tact for that—but awakened and drawn forth under his gaze, daily, nay hourly. I felt this; I resolved to be good if it were only to provoke my enemy, but I never could keep to the determination. She knew so well how to make me defiant as I had never been, or silent and sullen as Cornelius never had known me; above all, how to rouse me to a pitch of obstinacy which not even he could subdue.