graced by you. I only wish to do
my duty to Papa. I am very dear to him, and he is very dear to me. But
I never can forget that you were very good to me. Oh, pray to Heaven,'
cried Florence, falling on her bosom, 'pray to Heaven, Mama, to forgive
you all this sin and shame, and to forgive me if I cannot help doing
this (if it is wrong), when I remember what you used to be!'

Edith, as if she fell beneath her touch, sunk down on her knees, and
caught her round the neck.

'Florence!' she cried. 'My better angel! Before I am mad again, before
my stubbornness comes back and strikes me dumb, believe me, upon my soul
I am innocent!'

'Mama!'

'Guilty of much! Guilty of that which sets a waste between us evermore.
Guilty of what must separate me, through the whole remainder of my life,
from purity and innocence--from you, of all the earth. Guilty of a blind
and passionate resentment, of which I do not, cannot, will not, even
now, repent; but not guilty with that dead man. Before God!'

Upon her knees upon the ground, she held up both her hands, and swore
it.

'Florence!' she said, 'purest and best of natures,--whom I love--who
might have changed me long ago, and did for a time work some change even
in the woman that I am,--believe me, I am innocent of that; and once
more, on my desolate heart, let me lay this dear head, for the last
time!'

She was moved and weeping. Had she been oftener thus in older days, she
had been happier now.

'There is nothing else in all the world,' she said, 'that would have
wrung denial from me. No love, no hatred, no hope, no threat. I said
that I would die, and make no sign. I could have done so, and I would,
if we had never met, Florence.

'I trust,' said Cousin Feenix, ambling in at the door, and speaking,
half in the room, and half out of it, 'that my lovely and accomplished
relative will excuse my having, by a little stratagem, effected this
meeting. I cannot say that I was, at first, wholly incredulous as to
the possibility of my lovely and accomplished relative having, very
unfortunately, committed herself with the deceased person with white
teeth; because in point of fact, one does see, in this world--which is
remarkable for devilish strange arrangements, and for being decidedly
the most unintelligible thing within a man's experience--very odd
conjunctions of that sort. But as I mentioned to my friend Dombey, I
could not admit the criminality of my lovely and accomplished relati