When Bessie Maynard had poured out her complaint, with many an illustration of which a woman could well understand the bitterness, Aunt Nancy was silent a moment.
“It's pretty hard, dear,” she said then, embarrassed what to say. “Some men have that way of not caring anything about their wives, as soon as they have got them; but I never thought John would act so. And you know, Bessie, that, if it is hard, still he is your husband, and you can't leave him for that. Try to be patient, and don't lose courage. I'm sure he loves you, though he doesn't show it; and he'll come round by-and-by.”
The reply almost broke in on this trite advice: “I did not mean to leave him. I came down here to think. I can't think there. I wanted to see again this place where I was a child, and where I was so happy. I thought that perhaps some of the old feelings might come back. I have been afraid of some things. Aunt Nancy, I was afraid I should grow to hate John!”
“Oh! no, Bessie,” the old woman exclaimed. “Never let yourself hate your own husband! It would be a dreadful sin; and, besides, it wouldn't mend matters. It is better for a woman to love one who cares nothing for her than not to love anybody. I don't believe but John is fond of you still, if he'd only stop to think of it.”
There was no reply.
“What else were you afraid of?” Aunt Nancy asked presently. “You said you were afraid of some things?”
Bessie did not answer.
That other fear that, shunned at first, then glanced upon, then brooded over silently till it had grown almost a probability, flashed out again on her in all its original hatefulness when she found herself about to explain it to a listener like this.
“If you don't want to tell, I won't ask you,” Aunt Nancy said, with almost childlike timidity. “But, may be, since you have begun, you would feel better not to keep anything back. You know, Bessie, I am on your side, though I am John's own aunt.”
The younger woman crept nearer into the arm that half held her, and said, in a hurried whisper, “Every one is not so indifferent to me as John is!”