"
The other laughed bitterly.
"So I told myself, and so I kept saying over and over till the talk
we've had forced me to stop lying to myself. I'm not going to see a
sick woman. I'm going to stand where she stood that day."
"If you feel that way about it," Maurice said, putting his hand on the
other's arm, "you ought not to go in."
"I will go in."
"But obedience, Phil. Think what you were saying about the lecture."
"Nobody has forbidden me," Ashe responded defiantly. "I will go in. I
had made up my mind before I came. Oh, I shall do penance enough for
it; you need not be afraid of that. I shall suffer enough for it."
He started up the stairs, and Maurice followed blindly, full of
sympathy and dismay.
XXII
THE BITTER PAST
All's Well that Ends Well, v. 3.
They found the old woman in bed, attended by a slatternly half-grown
girl, who was reading by the dying light a torn and dirty illustrated
paper. There was little furniture in the chamber; merely the frowsy
bed, a bare table, a single broken chair besides the one in which the
girl was sitting.
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