Mrs. Kingsward had disapproved of the correspondence, had felt that it would be incumbent upon her to tell her husband of it, but yet in this unforeseen emergency she forgot all that.
“Without a word! What words could I say? You don’t suppose I could discuss it with him—ask if it was true? If it’s true, there isn’t a word to say, is there? And if it isn’t true it would be an insult to ask him. And so one way or another it is all just done with and over. And I wish you would leave me quiet, mamma.”
“Done with and over! Without a word—on a mere story of something that took place on a journey!”
“Oh! leave me quiet, mamma. Do you think I need to be reminded of that journey? As if I did not see it, and the lamps burning, and hear the very wheels!”
“Bee, dear, how can I leave you quiet? Do you mean just to let it break off like that, without a word, without giving him the chance to explain?”
“I thought,” said Bee, with a faint satirical smile, for, indeed, her heart was capable of all bitterness, “that it was broken off completely by papa, and all that remained was only—what you called clandestine, mamma.”
“I did not call it clandestine. I knew you would do nothing that was dishonourable. And it is true that it was—broken off. But, Bee! Bee! you don’t seem to feel the dreadful thing this is. After all that has passed, to let it drop in a moment, without saying a word!”
“I thought it was what I ought to have done, as soon as papa’s will was made known.”
“Oh! Bee, you will drive me mad. And I have got no breath to speak. So you ought, perhaps—but you have not, when perhaps there was a reason. And now, for a mere chance story, and without giving him—an opportunity—to speak for himself.”
Bee raised her face, now crimson as it had before been pale.