“Do you think he showed the confession to any other person?” Stella asked. “I happen to know that he concealed it from his mother.”
“After the housekeeper’s reproof,” I replied, “he would be cunning enough, in my opinion, not to run the risk of showing it to strangers. It is far more likely that he thought he might learn English enough to read it himself.”
There the subject dropped. We were silent for a while. She was thinking, and I was looking at her. On a sudden, she raised her head. Her eyes rested on me gravely.
“It is very strange!” she said
“What is strange?”
“I have been thinking of the Lorings. They encouraged me to doubt you. They advised me to be silent about what happened at Brussels. And they too are concerned in my husband’s desertion of me. He first met Father Benwell at their house.” Her head drooped again; her next words were murmured to herself. “I am still a young woman,” she said. “Oh, God, what is my future to be?”
This morbid way of thinking distressed me. I reminded her that she had dear and devoted friends.
“Not one,” she answered, “but you.”
“Have you not seen Lady Loring?” I asked.
“She and her husband have written most kindly, inviting me to make their house my home. I have no right to blame them—they meant well. But after what has happened, I can’t go back to them.”