Barbara began. Her voice had not the brilliant power of Lady Isabel's, but it was a sweet and pleasant voice to listen to.
"When other lips and other hearts Their tales of love shall tell, In language whose excess imparts The power they feel so well, There may, perhaps, in such a scene, Some recollection be, Of days that have as happy been--And you'll remember me."
Days that had as happy been! Ay! /did/ he remember her? Did a thought of her, his first and best love, flit across him, as the words fell on his ear? Did a past vision of the time when she had sat there and sung it to him arouse his heart to even momentary recollection?
Terribly, indeed, were their positions reversed; most terribly was she feeling it. And by whose act and will had the change been wrought?
Barbara was now the cherished wife, East Lynne's mistress. And what was she? Not even the courted, welcomed guest of an hour, as Barbara had been; but an interloper; a criminal woman who had thrust herself into the house; her act, in doing so, not justifiable, her position a most false one. Was it right, even if she did succeed in remaining undiscovered, that she and Barbara should dwell in the same habitation, Mr. Carlyle being in it? Did she deem it to be right? No, she did not; but one act of ill-doing entails more. These thoughts were passing through her mind as she stood there, listening to the song; stood there as one turned to stone, her throbbing temples pressed against the door's pillar.
The song was over, and Barbara turned to her husband, a whole world of love in her bright blue eyes. He laid his hand upon her head; Lady Isabel saw that, but she would not wait to see the caress that most probably followed it. She turned and crossed the room again, her hands clasped tightly on her bosom, her breath catching itself in hysterical sobs. Miss Carlyle was entering the hall. They had not yet met, and Lady Isabel swept meekly past her with a hurried courtesy. Miss Carlyle spoke, but she dared not answer, to wait would have been to betray herself.
Sunday came, and that was the worst of all. In the old East Lynne pew at St. Jude's, so conspicuous to the congregation, sat she, as in former times; no excuse, dared she, the governess make, to remain away. It was the first time she had entered an English Protestant church since she had last sat in it, there, with Mr. Carlyle. Can you wonder that the fact alone, with all the terrible remembrances it brought in its train, was sufficient to overwhelm her with emotion?
She sat at the upper end now, with Lucy; Barbara occupied the place that had been hers, by the side of Mr. Carlyle. Barbara there, in her own right his wife; she severed from him forever and forever!
She scarcely raised her head; she tightened her thick veil over her face; she kept her spectacles bent toward the ground. Lucy thought she must be crying; she never had seen anyone so still at church before.
Lucy was mistaken; tears came not to solace the bitter anguish of hopeless, self-condemning remorse. How she sat out the service she could not tell; she could not tell how she could sit out other services, as the Sundays came round! The congregation did not forget to stare at her. What an extraordinary looking governess Mrs. Carlyle had picked up!
They went out when it was over. Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle in advance; she, humbly following them with Lucy. She glanced aside at the tomb in the churchyard's corner, where moldered the remains of her father; and a yearning cry went forth from the very depth of her soul. "Oh, that I were laid there with him! Why did I come back again to East Lynne?"
Why, truly? But she had never thought that her cross would be so sharp as this.
