"Carry, Carry! you must be mistaking him; he could not wish that; it would be an insult—it would be impossible."
"That is why it pleases him," cried the poor wife; "he likes to watch and make sure that I suffer. If I did not suffer, it would do him no good. He says I am too proud and too cold to—go wrong, Edith! That is how he speaks to your sister; and he wishes to show me—to show me, as if I did not know—what I have and what I have lost!"
"Carry, you must not. Oh, don't let us even think of what is past now!"
"It is easy for you to say so. I have tried—oh, how I have tried!—never to think of the past—even now, even to-day. Think, only think! Because he supposed that, he went expressly to see John Erskine, to ask him to come here, planning to torture me,—no matter to him, because he was sure I was too proud to go wrong. He wanted to watch the meeting—to see how we would look at each other, what we would say, how we would behave ourselves at such a moment. Can you believe it, Edith? Was there ever anything in a book, in the theatre, so cruel, so terrible? Do you suppose one can help, after that, thinking of the past, thinking of the future too?—for suppose it had been—Edward——Oh no, no! I don't want to name his name; but suppose it had been—he. Another time it may be he. He may come to visit John Erskine. We may meet in the world; and then I know—I know what is before me. This man—oh, I cannot call him by any name!—this man, whom I belong to, who can do what he pleases with my life—I know now what his pleasure will be,—to torture me, Edie!—for no purpose but just to see me suffer—in a new way. He has seen me suffer already—oh, how much!—and he is blasé! he wants something more piquant, a newer torture, a finer invention to get more satisfaction out of me. And you tell me I must not think of the past!"
"Carry, Carry!" cried Edith, trembling; "what can I say? You ought not to bear it. Come home; come back to us. Don't stay with him, if this is how you feel about him, another day."
Carry shook her head. "There is no going back," she said; "alas! I know that now, if never before. To go back is impossible: my father would not allow it; my mother would not approve it. I dare not myself. No, no, that cannot be. However dreadful the path may be, all rocks or thorns, and however your feet may be torn and bleeding—forward, forward one must go. There is no escape. I have learned that."
There was a difference of about six years between them—not a very great period; and yet what a difference it made! Edith had in her youthful mind the certainty that there was a remedy for every evil, and that what was wrong should not be permitted to exist. Carry knew no remedy at all for her own condition, or indeed, in the reflection of her own despair, for any other. Nothing was to be done that she knew of; nothing could do any good. To go back was impossible. She sat leaning back in her chair, clasping her white thin hands, looking into the vacant air,—knowing of no aid, but only a little comfort in the mere act of telling her miseries—nothing more; while Edith sat by her, trembling, glowing, impatient, eager for something to be done.
"Does mamma know?" the girl asked, after a pause.
Carry did not move from her position of quiet despair. "Do you think," she said, "it is possible that mamma, who has seen so much, should not know?"
To this Edith could make no reply, knowing how often the subject had been discussed between her mother and herself, with the certainty that Carry was unhappy, though without any special explanation to each other of the manner of her unhappiness.