fate. For thy life shall fall as a leaf and be shed as the rain; And the veil of thine head shall be grief, and the crown shall be pain.
He was still intently thinking, and her companionship had now insufficient power to break or divert the strain of thought. What a weak thing her presence must have become to him! She could not help addressing Clare.
“What have I done—what have I done! I have not told of anything that interferes with or belies my love for you. You don’t think I planned it, do you? It is in your own mind what you are angry at, Angel; it is not in me. O, it is not in me, and I am not that deceitful woman you think me!”
“H’m—well. Not deceitful, my wife; but not the same. No, not the same. But do not make me reproach you. I have sworn that I will not; and I will do everything to avoid it.”
But she went on pleading in her distraction; and perhaps said things that would have been better left to silence.
“Angel!—Angel! I was a child—a child when it happened! I knew nothing of men.”
“You were more sinned against than sinning, that I admit.”
“Then will you not forgive me?”
“I do forgive you, but forgiveness is not all.”
“And love me?”
To this question he did not answer.
“O Angel—my mother says that it sometimes happens so!—she knows several cases where they were worse than I, and the husband has not