"Oh, Becky, you didn't mean that--worst?"
"Yes," said she, with no visible change on her poor, set face--"yes--I
do."
"I wish you would go out of my room, and leave me!" I exclaimed, then; "I
am not used to such people as you! Do you suppose I would have been with
you all these weeks if I had known? Don't you see how you have wronged
me? I never want to see you again, never! Go! go! and leave me alone!"
I shall never forget the look with which Rebecca rose wearily, and went
to the door--not an angry look, not a look of terror nor even of pleading
reproach; but it was as if her soul, sinful, crushed and bleeding though
it was, in that one moment, rose above my soul and condemned it with
sorrowful, clear eyes.
I listened to her step going down the stairs. I did not call her back. I
heard her latch the outer door of the Ark. No thought of pity for her
wrong, or commiseration for her desolation moved me. I thought only in my
proud selfish passion, how miserably, how bitterly I had been deceived.
I sought out the fisherman's letter before retiring, and the one I had
begun in answer, and tore them both into shreds, believing that I should
as easily rid my mind of the whole miserable affair with which I had been
unwittingly complicated.
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