'Never mind my being ill. I wanted you to know, because you were good to her, and I'm not going to be a hypocrite to you. Nobody else need know anything but that she's married, which is true. If I'd looked after her it mightn't have happened—perhaps. But I didn't look after her—I couldn't.'
His face, propped in his hands, was hidden from her. She was in a whirl of excitement and tragic impression—understanding something, divining more.
'Louie was always so self-willed,' she said trembling.
'Aye. That don't make it any better. You remember all I told you about her before? You know we didn't get on; she wasn't nice to me, and I didn't suit her, I suppose. But all this year, I don't know why, she's been on my mind from morning till night; I've always felt sure, somehow, that she would come to harm; and the worrying oneself about her—well! it has seemed to grow into one's very bones. '—He threw out the last words after a pause, in which he had seemed to search for some phrase wherewith to fit the energy of his feeling. 'I took her to Paris to keep her out of mischief. I had much rather have gone alone; but she would not ask you to take her in, and I couldn't leave her with John. Well, then, she got in my way—I told you—and I let her go to the dogs. There—it's done—done!'
He turned on his seat, one hand drumming the desk, while his eyes fixed themselves apparently on the portrait of Sir Humphry Chetham over the carved mantelpiece. His manner was hard and rapid; neither voice nor expression had any of the simplicity or directness of remorse.
Dora remained silent looking at him; her slender hands were pressed tight against either cheek; the tears rose slowly till they filled her grey eyes.
'It is very sad,' she said in a low voice.
There was a pause.
'Yes—it's sad. So are most things in this world, perhaps. All natural wants seem just to lead us to misery sooner or later. And who gave them to us—who put us here—with no choice but just to go on blundering from one muddle into another?'
Their eyes met. It was as though he had remembered her religion, and could not, in his bitterness, refrain from an indirect fling at it.