Which Rotha did, Antoinette at the same moment bursting into tears and flinging the hat on the dinner table.
What followed, Rotha did not know. She climbed the many stairs with a heavy heart. It was war to the knife now. She was sure her aunt would never forgive her. And, much worse, she did not see how she was ever to forgive her aunt. And yet—"if thy neighbour hath ought against thee"—. Rotha had far more against her, she excused herself, in vain. The one debt was not expunged by the other. And, bitter as her own grievances seemed to her, there was a score on the other side. Not so would Mr. Digby have received or returned injuries. Rotha knew it. And as fancy represented to her the quiet, manly, dignified sweetness which always characterized him, she did not like the retrospect of her own behaviour. So true it is, that "whatsoever doth make manifest is light." No discourse could have given Rotha so keen a sense of her own failings as that image of another's beautiful living. What was done could not be undone; but the worst was, Rotha was precisely in the mood to do it over again; so though sorry she was quite aware that she was not repentant.
It followed that the promises for which she longed and to which she was stretching out her hands, were out of reach. Clean out of reach. Rotha's heart was the scene of a struggle that took away all possibility of comfort or even of hope. She had no right to hope. "If thy hand offend thee, cut it off"—but Rotha was not so minded. The prospect was dark and miserable. How could she go on living in her aunt's house? and how could she live anywhere else? and how could she bear her loneliness? and how could she get to the favour of that one great Friend, whose smile is only upon them that are at least trying to do his commandments? It was dark in Rotha's soul, and stormy.
It continued so for days. In the house she was let alone, but so thoroughly that it amounted to domestic exile or outlawry. She was let alone. Not forbidden to take her place at the family table, or to eat her portion of the bread and the soup; but for all social or kindly relations, left to starve. Mr. Busby's mouth had been shut somehow; he was practically again a man of papers; and the other two hardly looked at Rotha or spoke to her. Antoinette and she sometimes went to school together and sometimes separate; it was rather more lonely when they went together. In school they hardly saw each other. So days went by.
CHAPTER XV.
MRS. MOWBRAY.
"How is that Carpenter girl doing?" Mrs. Mowbray inquired one day of Miss
Blodgett, as they met in one of the passages.
"I have been wanting to speak to you about her, madame. She knows all I can teach her in that class."
"Does she! Her aunt told me she had had no advantages. Does she study?"
"I fancy she has no need to study much where she is. She has been further."