Well, she was prepared
to tell him that she was ready to witness his amours with another
young girl. She would stay there --to comfort Leonora.
Then came the desperate shock of the letter from her mother. Her
mother said, I believe, something like: "You have no right to go
on living your life of prosperity and respect. You ought to be on
the streets with me. How do you know that you are even Colonel
Rufford's daughter?" She did not know what these words meant.
She thought of her mother as sleeping beneath the arches whilst
the snow fell. That was the impression conveyed to her mind by
the words "on the streets". A Platonic sense of duty gave her the
idea that she ought to go to comfort her mother--the mother that
bore her, though she hardly knew what the words meant. At the
same time she knew that her mother had left her father with
another man--therefore she pitied her father, and thought it
terrible in herself that she trembled at the sound of her father's
voice. If her mother was that sort of woman it was natural that her
father should have had accesses of madness in which he had struck
herself to the ground. And the voice of her conscience said to her
that her first duty was to her parents.
Pages:
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313