WYLDER'S HAJVD.
139
Rachel made no answer, but rose with a dreamy look, aa
if gazing at some distant object among the dark masses of
forest trees, and stood before the window so looking across
the tiny garden.
"I don't think, Rachel dear, you heard me?" said
Dorcas.
'' Can I conjecture why he is gone ?" murmured Rachel,
still gazing with a wild kind of apathy into distance.
"Can I? What can it now be to you or me — why?
There are many things best not conjectured about at all
— some interesting, some abominable, some that pass all
comprehension: I never mean to conjecture, if I can
help it again."
And the wan oracle having spoken, she sat down in the
same sort of abstraction again beside Dorcas, and she
looked full in her cousin's eyes.
"I made you a voluntary promise, Dorcas, and now
you will make me one. Of Mark Wylder I say this:
his name has been for years hateful to me, and recently
it has become frightful; and you will promise me simply
this, that you will never ask me to speak again about
him. Be he near, ar be he far, I regard his very name
with horror."
Dorcas returned her gaze with one of haughty amaze-
ment; and Rachel said,
"Well, Dorcas, you promise?"
"You speak truly, Rachel, you have a right to my
promise: I give it."
"Dorcas, you are changed; have I lost your love for
asking so poor a kindness?"
"I'm only disappointed, Rachel; I thought you would
have trusted me, as I do you."
"It is an antipathy — an antipathy I cannot get over,
dear Dorcas; you may think it a madness, but don't