“No,” I said; “that is not all. The devil that possessed me, when I discovered you with Philip, is not cast out of me yet. Silence the sneering devil that is in You, or we may both live to regret it.”
Whether I did or did not frighten her, I cannot say. This only I know—she turned away silently to the door, and went out.
I dropped on the sofa. That horrid hungering for revenge, which I felt for the first time when I knew how Helena had wronged me, began to degrade and tempt me again. In the effort to get away from this new evil self of mine, I tried to find sympathy in Selina, and called to her to come and sit by me. She seemed to be startled when I looked at her, but she recovered herself, and came to me, and took my hand.
“I wish I could comfort you!” she said, in her kind simple way.
“Keep my hand in your hand,” I told her; “I am drowning in dark water—and I have nothing to hold by but you.”
“Oh, my darling, don’t talk in that way!”
“Good Selina! dear Selina! You shall talk to me. Say something harmless—tell me a melancholy story—try to make me cry.”
My poor little friend looked sadly bewildered.
“I’m more likely to cry myself,” she said. “This is so heart-breaking—I almost wish I was back in the time, before you came home, the time when your detestable sister first showed how she hated me. I was happy, meanly happy, in the spiteful enjoyment of provoking her. Oh, Euneece, I shall never recover my spirits again! All the pity in the world would not be pity enough for you. So hardly treated! so young! so forlorn! Your good father too ill to help you; your poor mother—”
I interrupted her; she had interested me in something better than my own wretched self. I asked directly if she had known my mother.