"Why should I not say them! You and I know well enough that it is true. I hate you, I am jealous of you, for I know that my husband loves you; and yet, if you will only give me that parcel, I will forgive you—I will try to live at peace with you—I will even pray and strive for your happiness! Let me have a chance of making him love me!"
"For God's sake, Mrs. Kynaston, do not say these things to me!" cried Vera. She was crimson with pain and shame, and shocked beyond measure that his wife should be so lost to all decency and self-respect as to speak so openly of her husband's love for herself.
"I will not and cannot listen to you!"
"But you will not be so cruel as to ruin me?" pleaded Helen; "only give me that parcel, and I shall be safe! You say you have not opened it; well, I can hardly believe it, because in your place I should have read every word; yet, if you will give them to me, I will forgive you."
"You do not understand what you are saying!" cried Vera, impatiently. "How can I give you what is not mine to give? I have no right to dispose of this parcel"—she held it in her hand—"and I have given my word that I will give it to your husband alone. How could I be so false as to do anything else with it? You are asking impossibilities, Mrs. Kynaston."
"You will not give it to me?" There was a sudden change in Helen's voice—she pleaded no longer.
"No, certainly not."
"And that is your last word?"
"Yes."
There was a silence. Helen looked away over the water towards the fir-trees. She was pale, but very quiet; all her angry agitation seemed to have died away. Vera stood a little beneath her on the lowest step, close down to the water; she held the little parcel that was the object of the dispute in her hands, and was looking at it with an expression of deep annoyance; she was wishing heartily that she had never seen either it or the wretched little Frenchman who had insisted upon confiding it to her care.