"/Oh!/ and you are the man for
whom I have come to this! Oh, God! it is a cruel world." And she
pressed her hands to her heart and stumbled rather than walked to the
door.
Reaching it she turned, and her hands still pressing the coarse blue
gown against her heart, she leaned against the door.
"Edward," she said, in a strained whisper, for her breath came thick,
"Edward--I am going for ever--have you /no/ kind word--to say to me?"
He looked at her, a scowl upon his handsome face. Then by way of
answer he turned upon his heel.
And so, still holding her hands against her poor broken heart, she
went out of the house, out of Boisingham and of touch and knowledge of
the world. In after years these two were fated to meet once again, and
under circumstances sufficiently tragic; but the story of that meeting
does not lie within the scope of this history. To the world Belle is
dead, but there is another world of sickness, and sordid unchanging
misery and shame, where the lovely face of Sister Agnes moves to and
fro like a ray of heaven's own light. There those who would know her
must go to seek her.
Poor Belle! Poor shamed, deserted woman! She was an evil-doer, and the
fatality of love and the unbalanced vigour of her mind, which might,
had she been more happily placed, have led her to all things that are
pure, and true, and of good report, combined to drag her into shame
and wretchedness.
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