“Did you remember her, Laura, when she told you her name?”
“Yes, I remembered your asking me about Anne Catherick at Limmeridge, and your saying that she had once been considered like me.”
“What reminded you of that, Laura?”
“She reminded me. While I was looking at her, while she was very close to me, it came over my mind suddenly that we were like each other! Her face was pale and thin and weary—but the sight of it startled me, as if it had been the sight of my own face in the glass after a long illness. The discovery—I don’t know why—gave me such a shock, that I was perfectly incapable of speaking to her for the moment.”
“Did she seem hurt by your silence?”
“I am afraid she was hurt by it. ’You have not got your mother’s face,’ she said, ’or your mother’s heart. Your mother’s face was dark, and your mother’s heart, Miss Fairlie, was the heart of an angel.’ ‘I am sure I feel kindly towards you,’ I said, ’though I may not be able to express it as I ought. Why do you call me Miss Fairlie?——’ ’Because I love the name of Fairlie and hate the name of Glyde,’ she broke out violently. I had seen nothing like madness in her before this, but I fancied I saw it now in her eyes. ‘I only thought you might not know I was married,’ I said, remembering the wild letter she wrote to me at Limmeridge, and trying to quiet her. She sighed bitterly, and turned away from me. ‘Not know you were married?’ she repeated. ’I am here because you are married. I am here to make atonement to you, before I meet your mother in the world beyond the grave.’ She drew farther and farther away from me, till she was out