Bettina seemed not to hear his last words.
“He has suffered? You think he has suffered, and through me?”
“Is it possible that you can doubt it?”
“He gave no sign,” began Bettina, hesitatingly.
“To you—certainly not. How could he?”
“Did he to you?” she said, breathlessly.
The rector looked at her with a sort of sad scrutiny, and was silent a moment. Then he said:
“He wrote me one letter—the most brokenhearted expression of suffering I have ever read. It was before your marriage, when he still had some slight hope that you had mistaken your own feelings, in the statement of them which you had made in your letter to him. But then came the announcement of your marriage, since which time your name has not been mentioned between us.”
“Did you keep that letter?” she said.