Emily understood.
The first thing she did was to retrieve her precious letters. With the quickness of light she sprang to Aunt Elizabeth, snatched up the bundle and retreated to the door; there she faced Aunt Elizabeth, her face blazing with indignation and outrage. Sacrilege had been committed—the most sacred shrine of her soul had been profaned.
“How dare you?” she said. “How dare you touch my private papers, Aunt Elizabeth?”
Aunt Elizabeth had not expected this. She had looked for confusion—dismay—shame—fear—for anything but this righteous indignation, as if she, forsooth, were the guilty one. She rose.
“Give me those letters, Emily.”
“No, I will not,” said Emily, white with anger, as she clasped her hands around the bundle. “They are mine and Father’s—not yours. You had no right to touch them. I will never forgive you!”
This was turning the tables with a vengeance. Aunt Elizabeth was so dumfounded that she hardly knew what to say or do. Worst of all, a most unpleasant doubt of her own conduct suddenly assailed her—driven home perhaps by the intensity and earnestness of Emily’s accusation. For the first time in her life it occurred to Elizabeth Murray to wonder if she had done rightly. For the first time in her life she felt ashamed; and the shame made her furious. It was intolerable that she should be made to feel ashamed.
For the moment they faced each other, not as aunt and niece, not as child and adult, but as two human beings each with hatred for the other in her heart—Elizabeth Murray, tall and austere and thin-lipped; Emily Starr, white of face, her eyes pools of black flame, her trembling arms hugging her letters.
“So this is your gratitude,” said Aunt Elizabeth. “You were a penniless orphan—I took you to my home—I have given you shelter and food and education and kindness—and this is my thanks.”
As yet Emily’s tempest of anger and resentment prevented her from feeling the sting of this.