"Am I? People do alter. You are altered. You look ill."
"Not more so than usual," replied Alice. "I grow weaker with time But you are ill: I can see it. You look as if you had something preying on your mind."
"Nonsense, Alice. You are fanciful."
"What is it?" persisted Alice.
"If I have, your knowing it would do me no good, and would worry you. And yet," added Mrs. Dalrymple, "I think I will tell you. I have felt lately, Alice, that I must tell some one!"
Alice laid gentle hold of her. "Let us sit down on the sofa, as we used to sit together at the Grange, when we were really sisters. But, Selina, if you have wanted a confidant in any grief, who so fitted to be that as your husband?"
"He!" cried Selina—"he! It is the dread of his knowing it—the anxiety I am in, daily and hourly, to keep it from him—that is wearing me out. Sometimes I say to myself, 'What if I put an end to it all, as Robert did?'"
Alice was accustomed to the random figures of speech her sister was at moments given to using; nevertheless her heart stood still.
"What is it that you have done, Selina?"
"Ruined Oscar."