Mrs. North’s lips quivered for a moment.
“It shows that we ought to have stayed together,” she said, half crying. “Perhaps I should have been better if you had not gone. Oh, I shall never forget all you told me this morning.”
For Aunt Anne, in sheer desperation, as well as in penitent love and gratitude, had poured out the whole history of her life since she left Cornwall Gardens, and Mrs. North’s keen perception and quick sympathy had filled in any outlines that had been left a little vague.
“We know each other so well now, I don’t think I ought to call you Mrs. Baines any longer. I want to call you something else.”
“Let it be anything you like, my dear.”
“What does the Madon—Mrs. Hibbert, call you? But I know; she calls you ‘Aunt Anne.’ Let me do the same?”
“Yes, dear, you shall call me Aunt Anne.”
“Oh, I am so glad to be with you,” Mrs. North went on. “I have longed sometimes to put down my head on your lap and cry. I have been just as miserable as you have—more, a thousand times more; for my shame”—she liked indulging Aunt Anne in her estimate of her own conduct—“has been all my own wicked doing, but yours was only a sad mistake. I don’t think we ought to be separated any more, Aunt Anne; we ought to live together, and take care of each other.”
“My dear,” said the old lady, still lying on the sofa, “there will be no living for me; I am going to die.”
“Oh no,” Mrs. North answered, with a little gasp, “you are going to live and be taken care of, and loved properly. I wish the doctor would come again. Then I should speak on medical authority. Go to sleep a little while; I will sit by you.”