“I hope not. I hope it is not impossible, I mean, that he should care for her far more than he has ever done for me,” said Cicely. “Sometimes, mother, I have thought that my coldness and undemonstrativeness have been trying to Trevor. And he is naturally indolent. A wife who will cling to him and look to him for direction in everything may draw out his character and energy—a more gentle, docile wife than I would have been perhaps.”
She tried to smile, but the effort was a failure. Her mother looked at her with an expression of anguish. In her first outburst of angry indignation, she had almost forgotten what her child must be suffering.
“My darling,” she exclaimed, “my own darling, who could be more gentle and docile than you have always been? How can I tell you what I feel for you? And you have known it all these miserable days and never told me! No, Cicely, I cannot forgive them.”
“You will in time, mother dear,” said Cicely soothingly. “At least, you, and I too, will learn to believe it must have been for the best. I feel that I shall be able to bear it if I have still you. Only,” she added timidly,“please don’t speak against them. It seems to stab me somehow, to revive the first horrible pain,” she gave an involuntary shudder. “For my sake, mother dear, you will try to forgive.”
“For your sake I would try to do anything,” replied her mother.
“And,” whispered Cicely, “we can feel that it is only we two who suffer. My father has been spared all this.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Methvyn, “we may be thankful for that.”
“And after a while,” continued Cicely, “you and I will go away together to some new place where there be nothing to recall all this, and we shall be very happy and peaceful in our own way, mother dear, after all, shall we not?”
Mrs. Methvyn tried to answer cheerfully, but she could not manage it. She only shook her head sorrowfully, while the tears ran down her thin cheeks. Cicely kissed them away.
“I don’t know, dear,” the mother whispered. “I would not feel it so if I could look forward to being able to do anything to make you happy again. But I am getting old, my darling, trouble ages one, and I feel as if half my life had gone with your father.”