Aunt Sarah looked concerned as she read this epistle, which her niece had passed over to her.
"I am sorry for your husband, my dear. This affliction, coming so close upon the other, will be a dreadful blow. It is a pity they did not wait awhile, until they knew something of your whereabouts, before writing to him.
"I am more sorry that the news must be contradicted," was the reply. "As we are now situated, the certainty of my death would be a relief to him. This was my reflection that night"—She left the sentence unfinished.
"My dear!" Aunt Sarah removed her spectacles, and surveyed her niece with her kind, serious eyes. "Have you made up your mind to live separate from your husband for the rest of your life?"
"What else should I do, aunt? He will never come back unless I promise to love him, and that cannot be."
"That doesn't alter the fact of your duty, as I look at it. You ought to make him an offer to do right, at any rate. It would have been easier and pleasanter to live with him, if you had felt for him as a woman should for the man she marries; but you are married to him, and in the sight of the Lord you ought to cleave to him, and him only. That is a solemn covenant, dear—'for richer, for poorer; for better, for worse!' 'Those whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder!' It doesn't excuse people, who take these vows upon them when the right spirit is wanting, that they never thought how awful the engagement was. Their obligations are just the same, whether they love or not."
"The responsibility does not rest with me. I performed my duty while we were together. The separation was his act, and he must abide the consequences. I have erred greatly, Aunt Sarah; but ever since the night of our rupture, my conscience has been easy with respect to Mr. Hammond. I confessed that I had misled him, and begged his pardon. Could I do more?"
"Put the case to yourself, child! Do not be angry if I speak out my mind, and use against you some things you have told me. When you saw that Philip was growing to like you better and better, and that you felt nearer to him every day, why did you determine to die sooner than to have things go on so?"
"Because it would have been a crime for us to love each other—infamous treachery to my sister, to his wife, for us to name the word between us."
"And how would Lucy have felt, if you had come to an understanding and spoken out the true feeling of your hearts?"