"I know you have not used Eveena kindly, but I heard
from yourself that you had repented. That she, who could never be
coaxed or compelled to say what made her unhappy, or even to own that
I had guessed it truly, has fully forgiven you, you don't need to be
told."

"Indeed, I don't understand," the girl sobbed. "Eveena is always so
strangely soft and gentle--she would rather suffer without reason than
let us suffer who deserve it. But just because she is so kind, you
must feel the more bitterly for her. Besides," she went on, "I was so
jealous--as if you could compare me with her--even after I had felt
her kindness. No! you cannot forgive _for her_, and you ought not."

"Child," I answered, sadly enough, for my conscience was as ill at
ease as hers, with deeper cause, "I don't tell you that your jealousy
was not foolish and your petulance culpable; but I do say that neither
Eveena nor I have the heart--perhaps I have not even the right--to
blame you. It is true that I love Eveena as I can love no other in
this world or my own. How well she deserves that love none but I can
know. So loving her, I would not willingly have brought any other
woman into a relation which could make her dependent upon or desirous
of such love as I cannot give. You know how this relation to you and
the others was forced upon me. When I accepted it, I thought I could
give you as much affection as you would find elsewhere. How far and
why I wronged Eveena is between her and myself. I did not think that I
could be wronging you."

Very little of this was intelligible to Eunane. She felt a tenderness
she had never before received; but she could not understand my doubt,
and she replied only to my last words.

"Wrong us! How could you? Did we ask whether you had another wife, or
who would be your favourite? Did you promise to like us, or even to be
kind to us? You might have neglected us altogether, made one girl your
sole companion, kept all indulgences, all favours, for her; and how
would you have wronged us? If you had turned on us when she vexed you,
humbled us to gratify her caprice, ill-used us to vent your temper,
other men would have done the same. Who else would have treated us as
you have done? Who would have been careful to give each of us her
share in every pleasure, her turn in every holiday, her employment at
home, her place in your company abroad? Who would have inquired into
the truth of our complaints and the merits of our quarrel