'Good! there is no good. But can I help it, if I love him? Can I make myself not love him by just wishing it? Oh, I would do it if I could. But now you will understand why I shake my head when you talk of my coming to your house. Your ways and my ways must be different.'
Beatrice was startled, and, for a time, silenced. What Mary said of the difference of their ways was quite true. Beatrice had dearly loved her friend, and had thought of her with affection through all this long period in which they had been separated; but she had given her love and her thoughts on the understanding, as it were, that they were in unison as to the impropriety of Frank's conduct.
She had always spoken, with a grave face, of Frank and his love as of a great misfortune, even to Mary herself; and her pity for Mary had been founded on the conviction of her innocence. Now all those ideas had to be altered. Mary owned her fault, confessed herself to be guilty of all that Lady Arabella so frequently laid to her charge, and confessed herself anxious to commit that very crime as to which Beatrice had been ever so ready to defend her.
Had Beatrice up to this dreamed that Mary was in love with Frank, she would doubtless have sympathised with her more or less, sooner or later. As it was, it was beyond all doubt that she would soon sympathise with her. But, at the moment, the suddenness of the declaration seemed to harden her heart, and she forgot, as it were, to speak tenderly to her friend.
She was silent, therefore, and dismayed; and looked as though she thought that her ways and Mary's ways must be different.
Mary saw all that was passing in the other's mind: no, not all; all the hostility, the disappointment, the disapproval, the unhappiness, she did see; but not the under-current of love, which was strong enough to well up and drown all these, if only time could be allowed for it to do so.
'I am glad I have told you,' said Mary, curbing herself, 'for deceit and hypocrisy are detestable.'
'It was a misunderstanding, not deceit,' said Beatrice.
'Well, now we understand each other; now you know that I have a heart within me, which like those of some others has not always been under my own control. Lady Arabella believes that I am intriguing to be the mistress of Greshamsbury. You, at any rate, will not think that of me. If it could be discovered to-morrow that Frank were not the heir, I might have some chance of happiness.'
'But, Mary—'
'Well?'
