"And, but that you find I am a little better off than you thought for, would you have allowed it to be otherwise than cold and estranged?" returned Mrs. Dundyke, putting down the scent-bottle, and facing her sister.
There was no reply. What, indeed, could there be?
"Charlotte," said Mrs. Dundyke, dropping her voice to earnestness, as she went close to her sister, "the past wore me out. Ask yourself what your treatment of me was—for years, and years, and years. You know how I loved you—how I tried to conciliate you by every means in my power—to be to you a sister; and you would not. You threw my affection back upon myself; you prevented Mr. Arkell and your children coming to me; you heaped unnecessary scorn upon my husband. I bore it; I strove against it; but my patience and my love gave way at last, and I am sorry to say resentment grew in its place. Those feelings of affection, worn out by slow degrees, can never grow again."
"It is as much as to say that you hate me!"
"Not so. We can be civil when we meet; and that can be as often as circumstances bring us into the same locality. But I do not think there can ever be cordiality between us again."
"I had thought you were of a forgiving disposition, Betsey."
"So I am."
"I had thought——" Mrs. Arkell paused a moment, as if half ashamed of what she was about to say—"I had thought to enlist your sisterly feelings for me; that is, for my daughters. You are rich now; you have plenty of money to spare; and their patrimony has dwindled down to nothing—nothing compared to what it ought to have been. They——"
"Stay, Charlotte. We may as well come to an understanding on this point at once; it will serve for always. Your daughters have never condescended to recognise me in their lives; it was perhaps your fault, perhaps theirs: I don't know. But the effect upon me has not been a pleasant one. I shall decline to help them."
Mrs. Arkell's proud spirit was rising. What it had cost thus to bend herself to her life-despised sister, she alone knew. She beat her foot upon the hearth-rug.