conscious of the risk she was taking, but thinking the words might act like a blow in the face of a person sinking under a deadly narcotic.
Bessy’s smile deepened to a sneer. “I see you’ve talked me over thoroughly—and on his views I ought perhaps not to have risked an opinion”
“We have not talked you over,” Justine exclaimed. “Mr. Amherst could never talk of you … in the way you think.… And under the light staccato of Bessy’s laugh she found resolution to add: “It is not in that way that I know what he feels.”
“Ah? I should be curious to hear, then”
Justine turned to the letter, which still lay between them. “Will you read the last sentence again? The postscript, I mean.”
Bessy, after a surprised glance at her, took the letter up with the deprecating murmur of one who acts under compulsion rather than dispute about a trifle.
“The postscript? Let me see.… ‘Don’t let my wife ride Impulse.’— Et puis?” she murmured, dropping the page again.
“Well, does it tell you nothing? It’s a cold letter—at first I thought so—the letter of a man who believes himself deeply hurt—so deeply that he will make no advance, no sign of relenting. That’s what I thought when I first read it … but the postscript undoes it all.”
[ 376 ]
