Henry Handel Richardson

“ Tully laughed very much indeed, and still more at Boehmer’s remark that it was an ancient privilege of the ladies, never to be obliged to know their own minds.
“It’s a libel—take that, you naughty boy!” she cried, and slapped him playfully on the hand. “Ephie, love, how shall we punish him?”
“He is not to come again for a week,” answered Ephie slily; and at Boehmer’s protestations of penitence and despair, both she and Mrs. Tully laughed till the tears stood in their eyes, Ephie all the more extravagantly because Maurice stood unsmiling before her. ”

“ There had been, of course, his drunken boasts to take into account, but firstly, Maurice had only retained a hazy idea of their nature, and, in the next place, the events which had followed that evening had been of so much greater importance to him that he had had no thoughts to spare for Ephie—more especially as he then knew that Schilsky was out of the way. But now the whole affair rose vividly before his mind again, and in his heart he knew that he had always believed—just as Louise believed—in Ephie’s guilt. No: guilt was too strong a word. ”

“ He felt very perplexed. Only one thing was clear to him: he had promised to bring Ephie to see her the next day, and, however wrong it might be, the promise was given and must be kept. But what he now asked himself was: did not the bringing of the child, under these circumstances, imply a tacit acknowledgment that she was seriously involved?—a fact which, all along, he had striven against admitting. For, after his one encounter with Ephie and Schilsky, in the woods that summer, and the first firing of his suspicions, he had seen nothing else to render him uneasy ”

“ Do you remember?”
“Do you think when a man says a thing like that he forgets it? “asked Maurice in a gruff voice. He turned, as he spoke, and looked down on her with a kind of pitying wisdom. “If you knew how often I have reproached myself for it!” ”

“ On the afternoon when Maurice found that Madeleine had kept her word he went home and paced his room in perplexity. He pictured Louise lying helpless, too weak to raise her hand. His brain went stupidly over the few people to whom he might turn for aid. Avery Hill?—Johanna Cayhill? But Avery was occupied with her own troubles; and Johanna’s relationship to Ephie put her out of the question. ”

“ We women never resent having such things said to us—never—though it is supposed we do, and though we must pretend to. But I remember, too, I was in a bad mood that night, and was angry with you, after all. ”