"I hope you never will. Self-experience alone could enlighten you, nothing else; not all the books and arguments in the world."
"You allude to the time when Mr. St. John went away in anger."
"Not so," she murmured, scarcely above her breath. "When I learnt that he loved another."
"I think it is fallacy, that idea of yours, Adeline," I said, determined to dispute it for her own sake. "How could he have cared for Sarah Beauclerc and for you at the same time? He could not love you both."
"No, he could not," she said, a vivid, painful flush rising to her cheeks. "But he knew her first, and he is with her now. Can you draw no deduction?"
"We don't know where he is," I said. "Was your sister good-looking, Adeline?"
"Maria was beautiful," she replied. "We were much alike, resembling papa in feature, and mamma in figure and complexion."
"And she also died of consumption. What an insidious disease it is! How it seems to cling to particular families!"
"What is running in your head now, Mary? Maria died of scarlet fever. She was delicate as a child, and I believe they feared she might become consumptive. I don't know what grounds they had to judge by: perhaps little other than her fragile loveliness."
"If consumption is fond of attacking great beauties, perhaps Rose will go off in one."