"What is it?—what is it, my poor girl?" he murmured. "Are you unhappy? Are you sorry? Let it all end, then!"
"No, no; it isn't that! But I am very unhappy—yes, very, very unhappy! Oh, I didn't suppose I should ever feel so toward any one. I hate her!"
"You hate her?" gasped Colville.
"Yes, I hate her. And she—she is so good to me! It must be that I've done her some deadly wrong, without knowing it, or I couldn't hate her as I know I do."
"Oh no," said Colville soothingly; "that's just your fancy. You haven't harmed her, and you don't hate her."
"Yes, yes, I do! You can't understand how I feel toward her."
"But you can't feel so toward her long," he urged, dealing as he might with what was wholly a mystery to him. She is so good—"
"It only makes my badness worse, and makes me hate her more."
"I don't understand. But you're excited now. When you're calmer you'll feel differently, of course. I've kept you restless and nervous a long time, poor child; but now our peace begins, and everything will be bright and—" He stopped: the words had such a very hollow sound.
She pushed herself from him, and dried her eyes. "Oh yes."