Mabel saw his meaning dimly. The sting of her treatment of him had lain in the feeling that though there was no one else she preferred, she valued so lightly the love he offered that she refused even to tolerate it. Now his self-respect was restored. It was for a tangible rival, not for freedom in the abstract, that she had cast him off.
CHAPTER XXIII.
AN ABDICATION.
“Mab, are you awake?”
“Go away; I hate you!” was the muffled reply. Mabel had thrown herself, dressed, upon her bed, and her face was buried in the pillow. She shook off Flora’s hand angrily from her shoulder as she spoke.
“Why, Mab, I only wanted to tell you—— What have I done?”
Mabel sat up and pushed back her hair. “They let you go and help with him,” she said venomously, “and they kept me out. Dick called you—I heard him myself. And they wouldn’t let me come. Eustace held my hands. And you went—and helped them.”
“I didn’t do anything but hold things for them, really. Dr Tighe did it all, and your brother helped him. I had to go when they called me.”
“Did he look at you—recognise you? If he did, I’ll never forgive you.”
“No, not a bit. But, Mab——”
“I’m glad of that, at any rate. And you came to say I might go to him now?”