360 The Real Charlotte, 



apple trees in the kitchen-garden. Men forgot very easily* 

 and, thanks to the way she had tried her best to make him 

 think she didn't care, there was not a word of hers to bring 

 him back to her. She hated herself for her discretion ; her 

 soul thirsted for even one word of understanding, that would 

 be something to live upon in future days of abnegation, 

 when it would be nothing to her that she had gained his 

 respect, and one tender memory would be worth a dozen 

 self-congratulations. 



She turned at the end of the walk and came back again 

 under the apple trees ; the ground under her feet was white 

 with fallen blossoms ; her fair hair gleamed among the 

 thick embroidery of the branches, and her face was not 

 shamed by their translucent pink and white. At a little 

 distance Eliza Hackett, in a starched lilac calico, was 

 gathering spinach, and meditating no doubt with comfort- 

 able assurance on the legitimacy of Father Heffernan's 

 apostolic succession, but outwardly the embodiment of solid 

 household routine and respectabihty. As Francie passed 

 her she raised her decorous face from the spinach-bed with 

 a question as to whether the trout would be for dinner or 

 for breakfast ; the master always fancied fish for his break- 

 fast, she reminded Francie. Eliza Hackett's tone was 

 distant, but admonitory, and it dispelled in a moment the 

 visions of another now impossible future that were holding 

 high carnival before Francie's vexed eyes. The fetter made 

 itself coldly felt, and following came the quick pang of 

 remorse at the thought of the man who was wasting on her 

 the best love he had to give. Her change of mood was 

 headlong, but its only possible expression was trivial to 

 absurdity, if indeed any incident in a soul's struggle can be 

 called trivial. Some day, further on in eternity, human 

 beings will know what their standards of proportion and 

 comparison are worth, and may perhaps find the glory of 

 some trifling actions almost insufferable. 



She gave the necessary order, and hurrying into the house 

 brought out from it the piece of corduroy that she was 

 stitching in lines of red silk as a waistcoat for her husband, 

 and with a childish excitement at the thought of this 

 expiation, took the path that led to the shrubbery on the 

 hill. As she reached its first turn she hesitated and stopped, 



