Miss Aldclyffe whispered again. ‘They say I am certain to live; but I know that I am certainly going to die.’
‘They know, I think, and hope.’
‘I know best, but we’ll leave that. Cytherea—O Cytherea, can you forgive me!’
Her companion pressed her hand.
‘But you don’t know yet—you don’t know yet,’ the invalid murmured. ‘It is forgiveness for that misrepresentation to Edward Springrove that I implore, and for putting such force upon him—that which caused all the train of your innumerable ills!’
‘I know all—all. And I do forgive you. Not in a hasty impulse that is revoked when coolness comes, but deliberately and sincerely: as I myself hope to be forgiven, I accord you my forgiveness now.’
Tears streamed from Miss Aldclyffe’s eyes, and mingled with those of her young companion, who could not restrain hers for sympathy. Expressions of strong attachment, interrupted by emotion, burst again and again from the broken-spirited woman.
‘But you don’t know my motive. O, if you only knew it, how you would pity me then!’
Cytherea did not break the pause which ensued, and the elder woman appeared now to nerve herself by a superhuman effort. She spoke on in a voice weak as a summer breeze, and full of intermission, and yet there pervaded it a steadiness of intention that seemed to demand firm tones to bear it out worthily.
‘Cytherea,’ she said, ‘listen to me before I die.