“I knew it, momma,” said Ellen, sadly.
“You knew it! How?”
“That other letter I got when we first came—it was from his mother.”
“Did she tell—”
“Yes. It was terrible she seemed to feel so. And I was sorry for her. I thought I ought to answer it, and I did. I told her I was sorry, too. I tried not to blame Richard. I don’t believe I did. And I tried not to blame him. She was feeling badly enough without that.”
Her father and mother looked at each other; they did not speak, and she asked, “Do you think I oughtn’t to have written?”
Her father answered, a little tremulously: “You did right, Ellen. And I am sure that you did it in just the right way.”
“I tried to. I thought I wouldn’t worry you about it.”
She rose, and now her mother thought she was going to say that it put an end to everything; that she must go back and offer herself as a sacrifice to the injured Bittridges. Her mind had reverted to that moment on the steamer when Ellen told her that nothing had reconciled her to what had happened with Bittridge but the fact that all the wrong done had been done to themselves; that this freed her. In her despair she could not forbear asking, “What did you write to her, Ellen?”
“Nothing. I just said that I was very sorry, and that I knew how she felt. I don’t remember exactly.”