'Have I ever been too tired to help you, Olive?' asked Mildred, reproachfully; all the more that an uncomfortable sensation crossed her at the remembrance that she had noticed a wistful anxiety in Olive's eyes the previous night, but had nevertheless dismissed her on the plea of weariness, feeling herself unequal to one of the girl's endless discussions. 'I am sorry--nay, heartily grieved--if I have ever repelled your confidence.'
'Please don't talk so, Aunt Milly; of course it was my fault, but' (timidly) 'I am afraid sometimes I shall tire even you;' and Mildred's pangs of conscience were so intense that she dared not answer; she knew too well that Olive had of late tired her, though she had no idea the girl's sensitiveness had been wounded. A kind of impatience seized her as Olive talked on; she felt the sort of revolt and want of realization that borders the pity of one in perfect health walking for the first time through the wards of a hospital, and met on all sides by the spectacle of mutilated and suffering humanity.
'How shall I ever deal with all these moods of mind?' she thought hopelessly, as she composed herself to listen.
'So you spoke to your father, Olive? Go on; I will tell you afterwards what I think.'
There was a little sternness in the low tones, from which the girl shrank. Of course Aunt Milly thought her wrong and interfering. Well, she had been wrong, and she went on still more humbly:
'I thought it was my duty; it made me miserable to do it, because I knew Cardie would be angry, though I never knew how angry; but I got it into my head that I ought to help him, in spite of himself, and because Rex was so weak. You have no idea how weak and vacillating Rex is when it comes to disappointing people, Aunt Milly.'
'Yes, I know; go on,' was all the answer Mildred vouchsafed to this.
'I brooded over it all St. Peter's day, and at night I could not sleep. I thought of that verse about cutting off the right hand and plucking out the right eye; it seemed to me it lay between Cardie and speaking the truth, and that no pain ought to hinder me; and I determined to speak to papa the first opportunity; and it came to-day. Cardie and Rex were both out, and papa asked me to walk with him to Winton, and then he got tired, and we sat down half-way on a fallen tree, and then I told him.'