"Where is it that you are going?"
"I am going to join some ladies in Yorkshire, who pass their time in nursing the poor and sick," she answered. "It is called a Sisterhood. I have been thinking that perhaps in that retirement, and in the occupation it will entail, I may find peace. Once entered, I feel sure I shall never have courage to leave it: therefore I know that we shall not meet again."
He did not speak.
"And I should like to thank you, if I may dare, for all your consideration, your generous loving-kindness. Believe me, that, in the midst of the humiliation of accepting it, I have been grateful. When once I have entered this refuge, the necessity for your bounty will cease. Thank you deeply for all."
"You are tired of the world?"
"Yes. It has been to me so full of shame and misery."
"Do you know that you brought a great deal of misery upon me?"
"Oh, it is the consciousness of that that is killing me. If I could undo it with my life, I would; and be thankful. The recollection of the past, the cruel remorse ever haunting my conscience, has well-nigh crushed me. I want you to say that you will try to be happy in your life; there will be less impediment, perhaps, now that I shall be far away: I shall be to you as one dead. If I could only know that you were happy! that I have not quite blighted your life, as I have my own!"
"Do you like the idea of entering this retreat?"
"As well as I could like anything that can be open to me in this world now. It will be a refuge; and I dare to hope—I have dared to pray—that I may in time gain peace."