“You know, momma. I see all now. You needn’t be afraid that I care anything about him now,” and her mother knew that she meant Bittridge, “or that I ever shall. That’s gone forever. But it’s gone,” she added, and her mother quaked inwardly to hear her reason, “because the wrong and the shame was all for me—for us. That’s why I can forgive it, and forget. If we had done anything, the least thing in the world, to revenge ourselves, or to hurt him, then—Don’t you see, momma?”
“I think I see, Ellen.”
“Then I should have to keep thinking about it, and what we had made him suffer, and whether we hadn’t given him some claim. I don’t wish ever to think of him again. You and poppa were so patient and forbearing, all through; and I thank goodness now for everything you put up with; only I wish I could have borne everything myself.”
“You had enough to bear,” Mrs. Kenton said, in tender evasion.
“I’m glad that I had to bear so much, for bearing it is what makes me free now.” She went up to her mother and kissed her, and gazed into her face with joyful, tearful looks that made her heart sink.
XIV.
Mrs. Kenton did not rest till she had made sure from Lottie and Boyne that neither of them had dropped any hint to Ellen of what happened to Bittridge after his return to Tuskingum. She did not explain to them why she was so very anxious to know, but only charged them the more solemnly not to let the secret, which they had all been keeping from Ellen, escape them.
They promised, but Lottie said, “She’s got to know it some time, and I should think the sooner the better.”
“I will be judge of that, Lottie,” said her mother, and Boyne seized his chance of inculpating her with his friend, Mr. Pogis. He said she was carrying on awfully with him already; and an Englishman could not understand, and Boyne hinted that he would presume upon her American freedom.