‘Look here,’ she said hurriedly, ‘you must see him for me. If any one could move him to do his duty it would be you. You must see him, and tell him I am—willing to go back. Perhaps he may not listen to you at first, but if you keep your temper and persevere——’
‘I?’ said I, dismayed.
‘Yes, indeed, who else? only you could do it. And if you are patient with him and keep your temper—the great thing with him is to keep your temper—I never could do it, but you could. It would not be difficult to you. You have not got that sort of a nature, one can see it in your face.’
‘But you mistake me, I—I could not take it upon myself,’ I gasped.
‘Not when I ask you? You might feel you were not equal to it, I allow. But when I ask you? Oh, yes, you can do it. It is not so very hard, only to keep your temper, and to take no denial—no denial! Make him say he will not be so unkind any more. Oh, how tired it makes me even to think of it!’ she cried, suddenly putting up her hands to her face. ‘Please don’t ask me any more, but do it—do it! I know you can.’
And then she sat and rocked herself gently with her hands clasped over her face. This explanation had been too much for her, and somehow I felt that I was blamable, that it was my fault. I sat by her in a kind of dream, wondering what had happened to me. Was I under a spell? I did not seem able to move a step or raise a hand to throw off this burden from me. And the curious thing was that she never thanked me, never expressed, nor apparently felt, any sort of gratitude to me, but simply signified her will, and took my acquiescence as a right.
CHAPTER VII
I cannot tell how I got through that day: she got through it very comfortably, I think. In the evening she asked me to go into the pretty room she had been in last night.
‘I am so fond of what is pretty,’ she said; ‘I like everything that is nice and pleasant. I never would sit in any but the best rooms in the house if I had a house like this.’
‘But—someone might come in,’ I said. ‘To be sure the time for callers is over, but still my neighbours are very intimate with me, and some one might come in.’