“I like the old way best,” he continued, taking one of her hands into his. “Innocent, I have been very foolish, I have had a sad life of it for the last year. We must not say anything about the cause; but I have often been far from happy, and I never thought my little cousin would change to me. I could have understood any change in the world sooner than one in you.”
“I have not changed, Frederick.”
“Yes, dear, you have,” he said. “Once you liked nothing better than to sit with me, to walk with me; now you are uneasy and anxious to get away. Your hand is trying to escape from my hand; why should it? Do you know, when you used to put it on my arm in the old days in the garden, the soft little touch was always a comfort to me? Don’t you think I have more need of comfort now? but you take your hand away, Innocent.”
“It is not for that—it is not for that!” she cried. “Oh, Frederick, I must tell you now. My aunt will be angry, and perhaps you will be angry, and never speak to me again; but I must tell you—now.”
“What is it, dear?” he said in his softest tones. “I shall not be angry—nothing can make me angry with you.”
“Oh, Frederick, you don’t know—you never could imagine what I have to tell you. Do not touch me. I am too bad—too terrible! I killed—your wife.”
He looked at her with eyes of utter amazement, turning pale—not at this strange intimation, which seemed madness to him—but at the sharp recall to his real position, and the different ideas involved in it. Then he smiled—a somewhat forced smile.
“My dear Innocent, this is the merest madness,” he said. “I partly understand what you mean. You think it was your innocent presence that drove poor Amanda into this last fit of passion. Put away the thought from your mind, my poor darling—any one else—any trifling accident would have done the same——”
Innocent kept her eyes fixed upon him, learning what he meant from his face rather than from his words—the words themselves were not adapted to penetrate into her mind. But from his face she knew that he was not angry, that he did not understand—that he was soothing her, persuading her that she was mistaken, as her aunt had done.
“It was not the passion—it was what I gave her from the bottle,” she said, her voice falling very low—“her medicine to make her sleep; she shook me—she snatched it from my hand; that killed her—and it was I who did it. Now, now you understand!—and I know you will never speak to me again.”