I began to feel an oppression in my breathing that almost choked me. There are two windows in my room, and one of them only was open. I was obliged to ask her to open the other.
"She did it; she came back, and fanned me. I submitted as long as I could--and then I begged her not to trouble herself any longer. She put down the fan, and went on with what she had to say.
"'I wish to speak to you about Miss Minerva. You are aware that I gave her notice, last night, to leave her situation. For your sake, I regret that I did not take this step before you came to England.'
"My confidence in myself returned when I heard Miss Minerva spoken of in this way. I said at once that I considered her to be one of my best and truest friends.
"'My dear child, that is exactly what I lament! This person has insinuated herself into your confidence--and she is utterly unworthy of it.'
"Could I let those abominable words pass in silence? 'Mrs. Gallilee!' I said, 'you are cruelly wronging a woman whom I love and respect!'
"'Mrs. Gallilee?' she repeated. 'Do I owe it to Miss Minerva that you have left off calling me Aunt? Your obstinacy, Carmina, leaves me no alternative but to speak out. If I had done my duty, I ought to have said long since, what I am going to say now. You are putting your trust in the bitterest enemy you have; an enemy who secretly hates you with the unforgiving hatred of a rival!'
"Look back at my letter, describing what passed between Miss Minerva and me, when I went to her room; and you will know what I felt on hearing her spoken of as 'a rival.' My sense of justice refused to believe it. But, oh, my dear old nurse, there was some deeper sense in me that said, as if in words, It is true!
"Mrs. Gallilee went on, without mercy.
"'I know her thoroughly; I have looked into her false heart. Nobody has discovered her but me. Charge her with it, if you like; and let her deny it if she dare. Miss Minerva is secretly in love with my son.'
"She got up. Her object was gained: she was even with me, and with the woman who had befriended me, at last.
"'Lie down in your bed again,' she said, 'and think over what I have told you. In your own interests, think over it well.'
"I was left alone.
"Shall I tell you what saved me from sinking under the shock? Ovid--thousands and thousands of miles away--Ovid saved me.
"I love him with all my heart and soul; and I do firmly believe that I know him better than I know myself. If his mother had betrayed Miss Minerva to him, as she has betrayed her to me, that unhappy woman would have had his truest pity. I am as certain of this, as I am that I see the moon, while I write, shining on my bed. Ovid would have pitied her. And I pitied her.
"I wrote the lines that follow, and sent them to her by the maid. In the fear that she might mistake my motives, and think me angry and jealous, I addressed her with my former familiarity by her christian name:--"'Last night, Frances, I ventured to ask if you loved some one who did not love you. And you answered by saying to me, Guess who he is. My aunt has just told me that he is her son. Has she spoken the truth?'
"I am now waiting to receive Miss Minerva's reply.
"For the first time since I have been in the house, my door is locked. I cannot, and will not, see Mrs. Gallilee again. All her former cruelties are, as I feel it, nothing to the cruelty of her coming here when I am ill, and saying to me what she has said.
"The weary time passes, and still there is no reply. Is Frances angry? or is she hesitating how to answer me--personally or by writing? No! she has too much delicacy of feeling to answer in her own person.
"I have only done her justice. The maid has just asked me to open the door. I have got my answer. Read it."
"'Mrs. Gallilee has spoken the truth.
"'How I can have betrayed myself so that she has discovered my miserable secret is more than I can tell I will not own it to her or to any living creature but yourself. Undeserving as I am, I know that I can trust you.
"It is needless to dwell at any length on this confession. Many things in my conduct, which must have perplexed you, will explain themselves flow. There has been, however, one concealment on my part, which it is due to you that I should acknowledge.
"'If Mrs. Gallilee had taken me into her confidence, I confess that my jealousy would have degraded me into becoming her accomplice. As things were, I was too angry and too cunning to let her make use of me without trusting me.
"'There are other acts of deceit which I ought to acknowledge--if I could summon composure enough to write about them. Better to say at once--I am not worthy of your pardon, not worthy even of your pity.
"'With the same sincerity, I warn you that the wickedness in me, on which Mrs. Gallilee calculated, may be in me still. The influence of your higher and better nature--helped perhaps by that other influence of which the old priest spoke in his letter--has opened my heart to tenderness and penitence of which I never believed myself capable: has brought the burning tears into my eyes which make it a hard task to write to you. All this I know, and yet I dare not believe in myself. It is useless to deny it, Carmina--I love him. Even now, when you have found me out, I love him. Don't trust me. Oh, God, what torture it is to write it--but I do write it, I will write it--don't trust me!
"'One thing I may say for myself. I know the utter hopelessness of that love which I have acknowledged. I know that he returns your love, and will never return mine. So let it be.
"'I am not young; I have no right to comfort myself with hopes that I know to be vain. If one of us is to suffer, let it be that one who is used to suffering. I have never been the darling of my parents, like you; I have not been used at home to the kindness and the love that you remember. A life without sweetness and joy has well fitted me for a loveless future. And, besides, you are worthy of him, and I am not. Mrs. Gallilee is wrong, Carmina, if she thinks I am your rival. I am not your rival; I never can be your rival. Believe nothing else, but, for God's sake, believe that!
"'I have no more to say--at least no more that I can remember now. Perhaps, you shrink from remaining in the same house with me? Let me know it, and I shall be ready--I might almost say, glad--to go.'"
"Have you read her letter, Teresa? Am I wrong in feeling that this poor wounded heart has surely some claim on me? If I am wrong, oh, what am I to do? what am I to do?"
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The last lines addressed by Carmina to her old nurse were completed on the seventeenth of August, and were posted that night.
The day that followed was memorable to Carmina, and memorable to Mrs. Gallilee. Doctor Benjulia had his reasons also for remembering the eighteenth of August.
Still in search of a means to undermine the confidence which united Ovid and Carmina, and still calling on her invention in vain, Mrs. Gallilee had passed a sleepless night.