"Oh, do not ask me! I will never marry," Hester cried.
Then Catherine suddenly sat upright in her chair, and clasped her hands together with almost wild emphasis. "I would marry," she cried, "if I were you! I would wipe out every recollection. Did they tell you the pitiful story of a meeting in the train, a marriage suddenly made up—and who it was that went away into the darkness in what was to have been your place?"
"Yes, they have told me," said Hester, in a low voice.
"Lord in Heaven!" cried Catherine, "what a world, what a world this is!—all mockery and delusion, all farce except when it is tragic. And after that you will not marry—for the sake of——"
"How can I help it?" cried the girl, with wistful eyes. "You do the same yourself."
"Myself? that is different. Your heart will not be empty for ever, Hester. It cannot close itself up for ever. With me that was the last;—this is one thing that makes a mother like no one else. Hold the last fast, they say. It was everything one had to look to. I am very cheerful, and I shall live for years—many people do. But I have got my death blow," Catherine said. Then the silence dropped again between them. It was before a cheerful fire, with a lamp burning—altogether a more cheerful scene than in those sad summer days.
"There are some people who would not take much interest in it," Catherine continued, "but you do. I think you are like me, Hester. We were kept apart by circumstances; perhaps it is possible we might have been kept apart on purpose. "He"—Catherine made a pause before and after, and said the word with a sob—"never understood me. They say he was—afraid of me, never could trust me with what he really wished. Alas, alas! It must have been my fault——"
"Oh no, no!"
"Ah, yes, yes. I had rather think that; and there is a great deal that is base in me. I could not but laugh even at that story of Emma—even now. Human nature is so strange—it is a farce. I am not angry though, not at all: all things seem floating off from me. I could think we were floating away altogether, you and I——"
"You are not well. You are doing too much. I should like to send for the doctor."