The change, if it may be called one, had stolen on her like the change from childhood to womanhood, and had come with it. Florence was almost seventeen, when, in her lonely musings, she was conscious of these thoughts.
She was often alone now, for the old association between her and her Mama was greatly changed. At the time of her father’s accident, and when he was lying in his room downstairs, Florence had first observed that Edith avoided her. Wounded and shocked, and yet unable to reconcile this with her affection when they did meet, she sought her in her own room at night, once more.
“Mama,” said Florence, stealing softly to her side, “have I offended you?”
Edith answered “No.”
“I must have done something,” said Florence. “Tell me what it is. You have changed your manner to me, dear Mama. I cannot say how instantly I feel the least change; for I love you with my whole heart.”
“As I do you,” said Edith. “Ah, Florence, believe me never more than now!”
“Why do you go away from me so often, and keep away?” asked Florence. “And why do you sometimes look so strangely on me, dear Mama? You do so, do you not?”
Edith signified assent with her dark eyes.
“Why?” returned Florence imploringly. “Tell me why, that I may know how to please you better; and tell me this shall not be so any more.”
“My Florence,” answered Edith, taking the hand that embraced her neck, and looking into the eyes that looked into hers so lovingly, as Florence knelt upon the ground before her; “why it is, I cannot tell you. It is neither for me to say, nor you to hear; but that it is, and that it must be, I know. Should I do it if I did not?”
“Are we to be estranged, Mama?” asked Florence, gazing at her like one frightened.
Edith’s silent lips formed “Yes.”
Florence looked at her with increasing fear and wonder, until she could see her no more through the blinding tears that ran down her face.
“Florence! my life!” said Edith, hurriedly, “listen to me. I cannot bear to see this grief. Be calmer. You see that I am composed, and is it nothing to me?”
She resumed her steady voice and manner as she said the latter words, and added presently:
“Not wholly estranged. Partially: and only that, in appearance, Florence, for in my own breast I am still the same to you, and ever will be. But what I do is not done for myself.”
“Is it for me, Mama?” asked Florence.
“It is enough,” said Edith, after a pause, “to know what it is; why, matters little. Dear Florence, it is better—it is necessary—it must be—that our association should be less frequent. The confidence there has been between us must be broken off.”
“When?” cried Florence. “Oh, Mama, when?”
“Now,” said Edith.
“For all time to come?” asked Florence.
“I do not say that,” answered Edith. “I do not know that. Nor will I say that companionship between us is, at the best, an ill-assorted and unholy union, of which I might have known no good could come. My way here has been through paths that you will never tread, and my way henceforth may lie—God knows—I do not see it—”
Her voice died away into silence; and she sat, looking at Florence, and almost shrinking from her, with the same strange dread and wild avoidance that Florence had noticed once before. The same dark pride and rage succeeded, sweeping over her form and features like an angry chord across the strings of a wild harp. But no softness or humility ensued on that. She did not lay her head down now, and weep, and say that she had no hope but in Florence. She held it up as if she were a beautiful Medusa, looking on him, face to face, to strike him dead. Yes, and she would have done it, if she had had the charm.
“Mama,” said Florence, anxiously, “there is a change in you, in more than what you say to me, which alarms me. Let me stay with you a little.”
“No,” said Edith, “no, dearest. I am best left alone now, and I do best to keep apart from you, of all else. Ask me no questions, but believe that what I am when I seem fickle or capricious to you, I am not of my own will, or for myself. Believe, though we are stranger to each other than we have been, that I am unchanged to you within. Forgive me for having ever darkened your dark home—I am a shadow on it, I know well—and let us never speak of this again.”
“Mama,” sobbed Florence, “we are not to part?”
“We do this that we may not part,” said Edith. “Ask no more. Go, Florence! My love and my remorse go with you!”
She embraced her, and dismissed her; and as Florence passed out of her room, Edith looked on the retiring figure, as if her good angel went out in that form, and left her to the haughty and indignant passions that now claimed her for
