“Was it something belonging to a child?”
“Yes.”
“Was it a baby’s frock and cap? Answer me. We have gone too far to go back. I don’t want apologies or explanations—I want, Yes or No.”
“Yes.”
There was an interval of silence. She never moved; she still looked into fire—looked, as if all her past life was pictured there in the burning coals.
“Do you despise me?” she asked at last, very quietly.
“As God hears me, I am only sorry for you!” Amelius answered.
Another woman would have melted into tears. This woman still looked into the fire—and that was all. “What a good fellow!” she said to herself, “what a good fellow he is!”
There was another pause. She turned towards him again as abruptly as she had turned away.
“I had hoped to spare you, and to spare myself,” she said. “If the miserable truth has come out, it is through no curiosity of yours, and (God knows!) against every wish of mine. I don’t know if you really felt like a friend towards me before—you must be my friend now. Don’t speak! I know I can trust you. One last word, Amelius, about my lost child. You doubt whether I should recognize her, if she stood before me now. That might be quite true, if I had only my own poor hopes and anxieties to guide me. But I have something else to guide me—and, after what has passed between us, you may as well know what it is: it might even, by accident, guide you. Don’t alarm yourself; it’s nothing distressing this time. How can I explain it?” she went on; pausing, and speaking in some perplexity to herself. “It would be easier to show it—and why not?” She addressed herself to Amelius once more. “I’m a strange creature,” she resumed. “First, I worry you about my own affairs—then I puzzle you—then I make you sorry for me—and now (would you think it?) I am going to amuse you! Amelius, are you an admirer of pretty feet?”