Bertha rose up in the twilight, looking like a trembling, guilty thing, and slunk away from his cool voice and overbearing manner.
"Do you think I have been so terribly wicked to keep this secret?" she moaned.
"I think you have been very foolish; but as your folly arose from tenderness to your sister, I suppose you must be forgiven. You ought to have told your sister or Alden, or consulted a good doctor. You would have found then that you were mistaken."
"How could I speak to anyone without causing suspicion? How could I speak to her when I thought her only chance of continued health lay in forgetting? Indeed, our own family doctor, who never guessed this, told us after the trial was over that our only chance of health and leading useful lives was never to talk or let ourselves think of our trouble. Before we went abroad he warned us again and again."
"He was wise. And you—have you been obeying him?"
"How can you speak to me like this?"
"It is the medicine you need. Your sister is not mad—has never been mad. It is now years since your misfortune, and had there been want of balance or brain disease, it would have shown itself by now. Your sister is not obstinate or foolish. She is not subject to attacks of emotion, nor does she lack self-control. There is no sign of any such mania as could make such a crime possible to a well-principled woman."
"But—oh, but—I read constantly in the papers of people who kill themselves, or kill others and themselves afterwards. The verdict is always 'temporary insanity.' I supposed there was such a thing."
"That verdict is usually a cloak for ignorance; but it assumes that had such people lived they would have shown symptoms of mental disease."