'Of course,' said Betty. 'There is no going through the ages without some fatigue—for a common mortal.'
'We are doing too much,' said Pitt. 'The Abbey cannot be properly seen in this way. One should take part at a time, and come many times.'
'No chance for me,' said Betty. 'This is my first and my last.' She looked back as she spoke towards the tombs they were leaving, and wished, almost, that she were as still as they. She felt her eyes suffusing, and hastily went on. 'I shall be going home, I expect, in a few days—as soon as I find an opportunity. I have stayed too long now, but Mrs. Dallas has over-persuaded me. I am glad I have had this, at any rate.'
She was capable of no more words just then, and was about to move forward, when Pitt by a motion of his hand detained her.
'One moment,' said he. 'Do you say that you are thinking of returning to America?'
'Yes. It is time.'
'I would beg you, if I might, to reconsider that,' he said. 'If you could stay with my mother a while longer, it would be, I am sure, a great boon to her; for I am going away. I must take a run over to America—I have business in New York—must be gone several weeks at least. Cannot you stay and go down into Westmoreland with her?'
It seemed to Betty that she became suddenly cold, all over. Yet she was sure there was no outward manifestation in face or manner of what she felt. She answered mechanically, indifferently, that she 'would see'; and they went forward to rejoin their companions. But of the rest of the objects that were shown them in the Abbey she simply saw nothing. The image of Esther was before her; in New York, found by Pitt; in Westminster Abbey, brought thither by him, and lingering where her own feet now lingered; in the house at Kensington, going up the beautiful staircase, and standing before the cabinet of coins in the library. Above all, found by Pitt in New York. For he would find her; perhaps even now he had news of her; she would be coming with hope and gladness and honour over the sea, while she herself would be returning, crossing the same sea the other way,—in every sense the other way,—in mortification and despair and dishonour. Not outward dishonour, and yet the worst possible; dishonour in her own eyes. What a fool she had been, to meddle in this business at all! She had done it with her eyes open, trusting that she could exercise her power upon anybody and yet remain in her own power. Just the reverse of that had come to pass, and she had nobody to blame but herself. If Pitt was leaving his father and mother in England, to go to New York, it could be on only one business. The game, for her, was up.
There were weeks of torture before her, she knew,—slow torture,—during which she must show as little of what she felt as an Indian at the stake. She must be with Mrs. Dallas, and hear the whole matter talked of, and from point to point as the history went on; and must help talk of it. For if Pitt was going to New York now, Betty was not; that was a fixed thing. She must stay for the present where she was.
She was a little pale and tired, they said on the drive home. And that was all anybody ever knew.