“I always thought,” said Hannah, in a husky voice that sounded still of tears, “that a woman who was beautiful and gifted and admired, and had a husband to take care of her, must be the happiest creature in the world. I used to look at you with envy, but I knew, before to-night, that you suffered sometimes.”
“Sometimes! Oh, Hannah, it is not sometimes—but always—continually—evening and morning—day-time and night-time, for when I sleep I have such dreams! The things that were my day dreams long ago come back to me in sleep, and when I wake and think of myself as I am, I know not why I do not die of it. Oh, Hannah, if you have dreamed of marriage, give it up. Live your life out as you are. Die a dear, sweet, good, old maid, teaching little children and being kind to them and taking care of your old mother. Oh, my dear, don’t call yourself lonely. Don’t dare to say it, lest you should be punished. There is no loneliness that a woman can know which can be compared to a marriage like mine. Oh, I am so lonely every moment that I live, that I feel there is no companionship for me in all this crowded world, for the bitterness of my heart is what no one can feel or share.”
“Why did you marry your husband?” said Hannah, surprised at her own boldness.
“Why? I am glad you asked me that. I will tell you, and perhaps you may be saved what I have suffered. If my mother had lived it might have been all different. Surely, surely a mother would have known how to save her child from what I have suffered. A father might not—perhaps a father might not be to blame, though sometimes—oh, Hannah, it is dreadful, but my father seems to me a cruel, wicked man. It was he that did it. What did I know? Why your knowledge of the world is great and vast compared to mine! I had had only the sisters to teach me, and they were as ignorant as I. My father told me he had no home to take me to, and that Robert would give me a sweet home, and love and protection and kindness, and that I would be so happy and must consider myself very fortunate. He told me that Robert could not express himself very well, speaking a different tongue from my own, but that he loved me devotedly and that the great object of his life would be to make me happy. And so I married him, glad to please my father, pleased myself, as a child, at the idea of having a home of my own, and ignorant as a child of what I was doing.”
“And without loving your husband?” said the little teacher, with a look that showed she could be severe.
“What did I know about love? I thought I loved him. He was handsome and kind to me and my father said he adored me—he told me himself that he loved me. If his manner was not very ardent, what did I know about ardor in love-making? I knew my not being able to speak English fluently must be a hindrance to him in expressing himself, and I thought he was everything I could wish, and never doubted I should be as happy as a child with a doll-house and everything else that she wanted. As I remember now,” she said reflectingly, as if searching back into her memory, “Robert was different in those days—not an impassioned lover, compared to the tenor who sang in the opera to-night, but compared to what he is now, he was so. There was once that he seemed to care a little—”
She broke off and Hannah spoke:
“I was thinking to-night about you and whether you were not in danger,” she said, with a certain air of wisdom which her somewhat hard experience of life had given her. “How that man looked at you as he sang those words! That wild passion of love which they expressed seemed a reality. I wondered if you could hear them unmoved—and a thought of danger for you made me feel unhappy.”
Christine did not answer her for a moment. A strange smile came to her lips as her eyes rested gently on the little teacher. Eyes and smile had both something of hopelessness in them, as if she despaired of making herself understood.