“Why can’t you?”
“I cannot.”
“You haven’t told me yet why you done it at all.”
“Very well, I’ll tell you. I suppose I was mad at the time. Mother, did you ever love anybody?”
“Did I ever love anybody? Lawk a mercy! to be sure I did. I loved your poor father, and I loved my children when they come, and I love you now, though you are such a bad ’un, and I love that little chap. What does this mean?”
“I want you to consider, mother. The sort of love you’re speaking about is not what I mean. When you were engaged to my father, and when you married him, did you ever feel that you would have committed even a crime if he wanted it, just because you loved him so well?”
“A mercy me! no,” said the little woman. She rose now and dropped a curtsey. “My word! you are upsettin’, Clary. To be sure I loved Thomas. He was a good man when he wasn’t in his tantrums, but as to committing a crime for him, no, no, nothing of that sort. I wouldn’t have sinned for him, not I.”
“Then you don’t understand anything about desperate, passionate love,” said the younger woman. “You don’t understand the love I feel. I love Luke, for years I have loved him. What I did was my one and only chance of winning him.”
“Then you’re a greater fool than I gave you credit for,” said the old woman. “It’s all past bearing, and I don’t think I can keep the secret any longer.”
“Sleep over it, mother,” said Clara. “You are tired. I will get you a room ready for you.”