“Oh, Aunt Jessie, it is good to see you. Oh, now I believe I shall have a chance of being happy again.”
“Yes, my darling, I am glad to have got back. Oh, what I have suffered on your account!”
“But don’t you know the truth? Hasn’t Uncle Pete told you?”
“He came down with me from London, Augusta. And—yes—he has told me everything.”
“Then you can never really love me again.” Mrs. Richmond did not reply for a moment; then she said slowly:
“When you lay in great pain and delirium, when you were nigh to death, and missed your own mother, and felt, as you must have felt for a short time at least, that God Himself was hiding His face from you, then was your punishment, Augusta dear. If you have received it in due submission and repentance, who am I that I should not love you?”
“And does Nan—does Nan forgive me?”
“She is in the other room. You are quite free from infection; she will speak to you in a moment. But, Gussie, before you meet I have one little thing to tell you: Nan will never go to the Asprays. She will be my child always, for I owe to Nancy just as great a debt as Mr. Aspray owed her father. It is an old story, dear, and I will not tell it to Nancy yet for she is too young; but I think it right that you should hear it. Long, long ago, before you were born, and before your mother was married, Nancy’s mother and I were friends. But a great trouble arrived, for we both—each unknown to the other—loved the same man. He cared more for Nancy’s mother than he did for me; and Nancy’s mother loved him with all her heart and soul and strength. I didn’t know it at the time, although the knowledge came to me afterwards. She refused him for my sake. She loved him, and allowed him to think she cared nothing at all for him; and she did it altogether for me.
“I married him: he was my husband. He was very good to me. I never learnt the truth from him. He died, and after his death, somehow, I learnt the truth. My dear friend married in time another man. The marriage was not happy, and they were terribly poor. He died too, and little Nancy was left unprovided for. So I told her mother on her deathbed that Nancy would always be my tender care, my most cherished darling. Now, Augusta, you know for yourself that she has a right to my home and my love and my money. She is no charity-child, but a child any mother would be proud of.”
“There never was any one like her,” said Augusta slowly. “There was a time when I was mad with jealousy of her; but I know at last what she really is. But, oh, Aunt Jessie! I am tired, and I want to be forgiven right out. I have told Uncle Peter everything—every single thing from the first. And now let me see Nancy, that she also may forgive me.”