“To be friends; to be reconciled.”
“I am foolish even to think of her,” he muttered, impatiently. “But she looks so sad, so ill—what if she should die?”
That thought frightened him, and showed him first with what a passion he loved the frail creature who had deceived him.
He went to his mother and asked her advice.
“Is it not time for me to forgive that poor girl? What if she should die, mother?” he said.
“She will not die. There is no such good luck,” Mrs. Laurens said, bitterly.
“For shame, mother! I did not know you could be cruel enough to wish for any one’s death,” he exclaimed, and flung out of the room hurt and indignant.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
He began to repent of that cruel letter he had written to Molly, and to think that it would not be impossible to forgive her for her treachery. He formed a wistful habit of watching the door behind which she had hidden herself from angry scrutiny, but it never opened save for the egress or ingress of Florine who regarded in such surprise the apparition of Monsieur Cecil in the hall, that he would color up to his temples and turn away.
Yet the longing to see his wife, to hear her voice, grew upon Cecil daily, and much of his resentment died. Once or twice he was tempted to knock boldly at her door, to enter and take her in his arms, and tell her he forgave everything, because he loved her so well he could not live away from her presence. There was but one thing that deterred him; it was the sight every day in his room of the books Molly had sent back with that maddening message.