Forgotten her voice! Indeed, he had not forgotten her voice, as his
bitterness showed. But though in the heat of the moment he had
reproached her keenly, his second mood was a far more tender one--that
which could regard her renunciation of such as he as her glory and her
privilege, his own fidelity notwithstanding. He could have declared
with a contemporary poet-"If I forget,
The salt creek may forget the ocean;
If I forget
The heart whence flows my heart's bright motion,
May I sink meanlier than the worst
Abandoned, outcast, crushed, accurst,
If I forget.
"Though you forget,
No word of mine shall mar your pleasure;
Though you forget,
You filled my barren life with treasure,
You may withdraw the gift you gave;
You still are queen, I still am slave,
Though you forget."
She had tears in her eyes at the thought that she could not remind him
of what he ought to have remembered; that not herself but the pressure
of events had dissipated the dreams of their early youth. Grace was
thus unexpectedly worsted in her encounter with her old friend. She
had opened the window with a faint sense of triumph, but he had turned
it into sadness; she did not quite comprehend the reason why. In truth
it was because she was not cruel enough in her cruelty. If you have to
use the knife, use it, say the great surgeons; and for her own peace
Grace should have contemned Winterborne thoroughly or not at all. As
it was, on closing the window an indescribable, some might have said
dangerous, pity quavered in her bosom for him.
Presently her husband entered the room, and told her what a wonderful
sunset there was to be seen.
"I have not noticed it. But I have seen somebody out there that we
know," she replied, looking into the court.
Fitzpiers followed the direction of her eyes, and said he did not
recognize anybody.
"Why, Mr. Winterborne--there he is, cider-making. He combines that
with his other business, you know."
"Oh--that fellow," said Fitzpiers, his curiosity becoming extinct.
She, reproachfully: "What, call Mr. Winterborne a fellow, Edgar? It is
true I was just saying to myself that I never could have married him;
but I have much regard for him, and always shall."
"Well, do by all means, my dear one. I dare say I am inhuman, and
supercilious, and contemptibly proud of my poor old ramshackle family;
but I do honestly confess to you that I feel as if I belonged to a
different species from the people who are working in that yard."