Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 2.djvu/310

300 I left him—muttering bad language to himself, and went up stairs.

"You are poorly Ma'am," said Rachel, surveying me with deep anxiety.

"It is too true, Rachel!" said I, answering her sad looks rather than her words.

"I knew it—or I wouldn't have mentioned such a thing."

"But don't you trouble yourself about it," said I, kissing her pale, time-wasted cheek—"I can bear it—better than you imagine."

"Yes, you were always for 'bearing'—But if I was you I wouldn't bear it—I'd give way to it, and cry right hard!—and I'd talk too, I just would—I'd let him know what it was to—"

"I have talked," said I: "I've said enough."

"Then I'd cry," persisted she. "I wouldn't look so white and so calm, and burst my heart with keeping it in!"

"I have cried," said I, smiling in spite of my misery; "and I am calm now, really, so don't discompose me again, nurse: let us say