Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/394

Rh “I didn’t mean that, Justine … but let us not talk now—I can’t!”

Justine did not move: the reaction could not come as quickly in her case. But she turned on Bessy two eyes full of pardon, full of speechless pity … and Bessy received the look silently before she moved to the door and went out.

“Oh, poor thing—poor thing!” Justine gasped as the door closed.

She had already forgotten her own hurt—she was alone again with Bessy’s sterile pain. She stood staring before her for a moment—then her eyes fell on Amherst’s letter, which had ﬂuttered to the ﬂoor between them. The fatal letter! If it had not come at that unlucky moment perhaps she might still have gained her end.… She picked it up and re-read it. Yes—there were phrases in it that a wounded suspicious heart might misconstrue.… Yet Bessy’s last words had absolved her.… Why had she not answered them? Why had she stood there dumb? The blow to her pride had been too deep, had been dealt too unexpectedly—for one miserable moment she had thought ﬁrst of herself! Ah, that importunate, irrepressible self—the moi haïssable of the Christian—if only one could tear it from one’s breast! She had missed an opportunity—her last opportunity perhaps! By this time, even, a hundred hostile inﬂuences, cold

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