Yes, Charles Batty was a miracle, there was no other word for him and,
by contrast, the image of Francis Sales appeared mean, contemptible.
Why had he failed her? His desertion was a blessing, but it was also a
slight and perhaps a tribute to the power of Rose. Yes, that was it.
She set her little teeth. He had stared at Aunt Rose as though he
could not look at her enough, not with the starved expression she had
first intercepted long ago, but with a look of wonder, almost of awe.
She was nearly middle-aged, yet she could force that from him. Well,
she was welcome to anything he could give her, his offerings were no
compliment. Henrietta was done with him; she would not think of him
again; she had been foolish, she had been wicked, but she was the
richer and the wiser for her experience.
She had always been taught that sin brought suffering, yet here she
was, warm and comfortable, in possession of a salutary lesson and with
the good Charles for a secure friend. It was odd, unnatural, and this
variation in her case gave her a pleasant feeling of being a special
person for whom the operation of natural laws could be diverted. By
the weakness of Francis Sales and the strength of Aunt Rose whom,
nevertheless, she could never forgive, she was saved from much
unhappiness, and if her mother knew everything in that heaven to which
she had surely gone, she must now be weeping tears of thankfulness.
Yet Henrietta's future lay before her rather drearily.
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