"Amelia, I protest before God, I have done my husband no wrong,"
Rebecca said, turning from her.
"Have you done me no wrong, Rebecca? You did not succeed, but you
tried. Ask your heart if you did not."
She knows nothing, Rebecca thought.
"He came back to me. I knew he would. I knew that no falsehood, no
flattery, could keep him from me long. I knew he would come. I prayed
so that he should."
The poor girl spoke these words with a spirit and volubility which
Rebecca had never before seen in her, and before which the latter was
quite dumb. "But what have I done to you," she continued in a more
pitiful tone, "that you should try and take him from me? I had him but
for six weeks. You might have spared me those, Rebecca. And yet, from
the very first day of our wedding, you came and blighted it. Now he is
gone, are you come to see how unhappy I am?" she continued. "You made
me wretched enough for the past fortnight: you might have spared me
to-day."
"I--I never came here," interposed Rebecca, with unlucky truth.
"No. You didn't come. You took him away. Are you come to fetch him
from me?" she continued in a wilder tone. "He was here, but he is gone
now. There on that very sofa he sate. Don't touch it. We sate and
talked there. I was on his knee, and my arms were round his neck, and
we said 'Our Father.' Yes, he was here: and they came and took him
away, but he promised me to come back."
"He will come back, my dear," said Rebecca, touched in spite of herself.
"Look," said Amelia, "this is his sash--isn't it a pretty colour?" and
she took up the fringe and kissed it. She had tied it round her waist
at some part of the day. She had forgotten her anger, her jealousy,
the very presence of her rival seemingly. For she walked silently and
almost with a smile on her face, towards the bed, and began to smooth
down George's pillow.
Rebecca walked, too, silently away. "How is Amelia?" asked Jos, who
still held his position in the chair.
"There should be somebody with her," said Rebecca. "I think she is very
unwell": and she went away with a very grave face, refusing Mr.
Sedley's entreaties that she would stay and partake of the early dinner
which he had ordered.
Rebecca was of a good-natured and obliging disposition; and she liked
Amelia rather than otherwise. Even her hard words, reproachful as they
were, were complimentary--the groans of a person stinging under defeat.
Meeting Mrs. O'Dowd, whom the Dean's sermons had by no means comforted,
and who was walking very disconsolately in the Parc, Rebecca accosted
the latter, rather to the surprise of the Major's wife, who was not
accustomed to such marks of politeness from Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, and
informing her that poor little Mrs. Osborne was in a desperate
condition, and almost mad with grief, sent off the good-natured
Irishwoman straight to see if she could console her young favourite.