'I think it is impossible.'
'Impossible! Nothing should be impossible. All the people that one hears of that are really true to their loves never find anything impossible. Does he love me, Miss Carbury? It all depends on that. That's what I want to know.' She paused, but Hetta could not answer the question. 'You must know about your brother. Don't you know whether he does love me? If you know I think you ought to tell me.' Hetta was still silent. 'Have you nothing to say?'
'Miss Melmotte-' began poor Hetta very slowly.
'Call me Marie. You said you would love me, did you not? I don't even know what your name is.'
'My name is Hetta.'
'Hetta;--that's short for something. But it's very pretty. I have no brother, no sister. And I'll tell you, though you must not tell anybody again;--I have no real mother. Madame Melmotte is not my mamma, though papa chooses that it should be thought so.' All this she whispered, with rapid words, almost into Hetta's ear. 'And papa is so cruel to me! He beats me sometimes.' The new friend, round whom Marie still had her arm, shuddered as she heard this. 'But I never will yield a bit for that. When he boxes and thumps me I always turn and gnash my teeth at him. Can you wonder that I want to have a friend? Can you be surprised that I should be always thinking of my lover? But,--if he doesn't love me, what am I to do then?'
'I don't know what I am to say,' ejaculated Hetta amidst her sobs. Whether the girl was good or bad, to be sought or to be avoided, there was so much tragedy in her position that Hetta's heart was melted with sympathy.
'I wonder whether you love anybody, and whether he loves you,' said Marie. Hetta certainly had not come there to talk of her own affairs, and made no reply to this. 'I suppose you won't tell me about yourself.'
'I wish I could tell you something for your own comfort.'
'He will not try again, you think?'
'I am sure he will not.'
'I wonder what he fears. I should fear nothing,--nothing. Why should not we walk out of the house, and be married any way? Nobody has a right to stop me. Papa could only turn me out of his house. I will venture if he will.'
It seemed to Hetta that even listening to such a proposition amounted to falsehood,--to that guilt of which Mr Melmotte had dared to suppose that she could be capable. 'I cannot listen to it. Indeed I cannot listen to it. My brother is sure that he cannot--cannot--'