“If I remember right, her mind was never very sound.”
Lawrence did not seem at all angry, but replied:
“I know she is not brilliant, but something certainly has affected her within the past few months. She used to write such splendid letters as to astonish me, but since I’ve been in Europe there’s a very perceptible difference. Indeed, the change was so great that I could not reconcile it until Geraldine suggested that her ill health and shattered nerves were probably the cause, and then I pitied her so much. There’s not a very wide step between pity and love, you know.”
Lawrence paused, and sat intently watching the sunlight on the floor, while Oliver was communing with himself.
“Shall I undeceive him, or shall I suffer him to rush on blindfolded, as it were? No, I will not. I saved him once for Mildred, and I’ll save him for her again.”
Thus deciding, Oliver moved his chair nearer to Lawrence’s side, and said:
“Did it ever occur to you that another than Lilian wrote her letters,—her old letters I mean, when she was in Charlestown, and at school at Beechwood?”
“Clubs!” and Lawrence looked him fixedly in the face. “Who should write Lilian’s letters but herself? What would you insinuate?”
“Nothing but what I know to be true,” returned Oliver. “Mildred Howell always wrote Lilian’s letters for her,—always. Lilian copied them, ’tis true, but the words were Mildred’s.”
“Deceived me again,” Lawrence hoarsely whispered. “I forgave the first as a sudden impulse, but this systematic, long-continued deception, never. Oh, is there no faith in women?”