“I could never take that up again,” she said.
“I am so sorry,” was all that Fan could say in reply, and then the other without more words left her.
But in the evening she returned to the subject of her own accord.
“Fan, dear,” she said, “I must ask your forgiveness for the way I have acted towards you since we have been here together. It would not have been strange if you had resented it—if you had judged me ungrateful. But you never changed; your patience was so great. And now that he has gone you are more to me than ever. Not only because you have acted towards me like a very dear sister, but also because you did that for him which I was powerless to do. Your taking us away out of that hot place made his last days easier and more peaceful. And you were with him at the last, Fan. Now I can speak of that—I must speak of it! Death seemed cruel to him, coming thus suddenly, when hope was so strong and the earth looked so bright. And how cruel it has seemed to me—the chance that took me from his side when that terrible moment was so near! How cruel that his dying eyes should not have looked on me, that he should not have felt my arms sustaining him! So hard has this seemed to me that I have thought little about you—of the agony of pain and suspense you suffered, of the strength and courage which enabled you to sustain him and yourself until it was all over.”
She was crying now, and ceased speaking. She had not told, nor would she ever tell, the chief cause of the bitterness she felt at the circumstances attending her husband's death. It was because Fan, and no other, had been with him, sustaining him—Fan, who had always been depreciated by him, and treated so hardly at the last; for she could not remember that he had treated any other human creature with so little justice. It had been hard to endure when the girl they had left, hiding themselves from her, ashamed to know her, had found them in their depressed and suffering condition, only to heap coals of fire on their heads. Hard to endure that her husband seemed to have forgotten everything, and readily took every good thing from her hands, as if it had been only his due. But that final scene among the garden trees had seemed to her less like chance than the deliberately-planned action of some unseen power, that had followed them in all their wanderings, and had led the meek spirit they had despised to their hiding-place, to give it at last a full and perfect, yea, an angelic revenge.
After a while, drying her eyes, she resumed:
“But I particularly wish to speak about what you said this morning. I could not possibly go back to those East-End sketches of life—even the name of the paper I wrote them for is so painfully associated in my mind with all that Merton and I went through. I was struggling so hard—oh, so hard to keep our heads above water, and seemed to be succeeding. I was so hopeful that better days were in store for us, and the end seemed to come so suddenly ... and my striving had been in vain ... and the fight was lost. I know that I must rouse myself, that I have to work for a living, only just now I seem to have lost all desire to do anything, all energy. But I know, Fan, that this will not last. Grief for the dead does not endure long—never long enough. I must work, and there is nothing I shall ever care to do for a living except literary work. I have felt and shall feel again that a garret for shelter and dry bread for food would be dearer to me earned in that way than every comfort and luxury got by any other means. During the last day or two, while I have been sitting by myself, an idea has slowly been taking shape in my mind, which will make a fairly good story, I think, if properly worked out. But that will take time, and just now I could not put pen to paper, even to save myself from starving. For a little longer, dear, I must be contented to live on your charity.”
“My charity, Constance! It was better a little while ago when you said that I had been like a very dear sister to you. But now you make me think that you did not mean that, that there is some bitterness in your heart because you have accepted anything at my hands.”
“Darling, don't make that mistake. The word was not well-chosen. Let me say your love, Fan—the love which has fed and sheltered my body, and has done so much to sustain my soul.”
And once more they kissed and were reconciled. From that day the improvement for which Fan had been waiting began to show itself. Constance no longer seemed strange and unlike her former self; and she no longer refused to go out for a walk every day. But she would not allow her walks with Fan to interfere with the latter's visits to Miss Starbrow. “She must be more to you than I can ever be,” she would insist. “Well, dear, she cannot be less, and while she and you are in town it is only natural that you should be glad to see each other every day.” And so after a walk in the morning she would persuade Fan to go later in the day to Dawson Place.