“Don’t be angry with me, Marian,” she said, mistaking my silence.

I only answered by drawing her close to me again. I was afraid of crying if I spoke. My tears do not flow so easily as they ought⁠—they come almost like men’s tears, with sobs that seem to tear me in pieces, and that frighten everyone about me.

“I have thought of this, love, for many days,” she went on, twining and twisting my hair with that childish restlessness in her fingers, which poor Mrs. Vesey still tries so patiently and so vainly to cure her of⁠—“I have thought of it very seriously, and I can be sure of my courage when my own conscience tells me I am right. Let me speak to him tomorrow⁠—in your presence, Marian. I will say nothing that is wrong, nothing that you or I need be ashamed of⁠—but, oh, it will ease my heart so to end this miserable concealment! Only let me know and feel that I have no deception to answer for on my side, and then, when he has heard what I have to say, let him act towards me as he will.”