'
'But I shall never care for her again. It is not like Mysie, who never
stopped being kind all the time--nor Gillian either. I shall cut her
next time!'
'You should remember that she has something to forgive. I don't want
you to be intimate with her but I think it would be better if, instead
of quarrelling openly, you wrote a note to say that you were deceived
and that you are very sorry for what you brought on her.'
'I should not have gone on with it but for her and Her stupid poems!'
'Can you bear to tell me how it all was, my dear? I do not half
understand it.'
And on the way home, and in Lady Merrifield's own room Dolores found it
a relief to pour forth an explanation of the whole affair, beginning
with that meeting with Mr. Flinders at Exeter, of which no one had
heard, and going on to her indignation at the inspection of her
letters; and how Constance had undertaken to conduct her
correspondence, 'and that made it seem as if she must write to some
one,'--so she wrote to Uncle Alfred. And then Constance, becoming
excited at the prospect of a literary connection, all the rest
followed. It was a great relief to have told it all, and Lady
Merrifield was glad to see that the sense of deceit was what weighed
most heavily upon her niece, and seemed to have depressed her all
along. Indeed, the aunt came to the conclusion that though Dolores
alone might still have been sullen, morose and disagreeable, perhaps
very reserved, she never would have kept up the systematic deceit but
for Constance.
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