Chapter 20

She had left them to each other. It was eight o'clock. She had crept back again to the bed that was her refuge, where she had lain for the last hour, weeping to exhaustion. She had raised herself at the touch of a hand on her hot forehead. Jane was standing beside her.

"Kitty," she said, "will you see Robert for a moment? He's waiting for you downstairs, in your room."

Kitty dropped back again on her pillow with her arm over her face, warding off Jane's gaze.

"No," she said, "I can't see him. I can't go through that again."

"But, Kitty, there's something he wants to say to you."

"There's nothing he can say. Nothing--nothing. Tell him I'm going away."

"You mustn't go without seeing him."

"I must. It's the only way."

"For you--yes. How about him?"

Kitty sighed. She stirred irresolutely on her pillow.

"No, no," she said. "I've done it once. I can't do it all over again."

"I suppose," said Jane, "it _is_ easier--not to see him."

At that Kitty clenched her hands.

"Easier?" she cried. "I'd give my soul to see him for one minute--one minute, Janey."

She turned, stifling her sobs on her pillow. They ceased, and the passion that was in her had its way then. She lay on her face, convulsed, biting into the pillow; gripping the sheets, tearing at them and wringing them in her hands. Her whole body writhed, shaken and tormented.

"Oh, go away!" she cried. "Go away. Don't look at me!"

But Jane did not go. She stood there by the bedside.

She had come to the end of her adventure. It was as if she had been brought there blindfold, carried past the border into the terrible, alien, unpenetrated lands. Her genius for exploration had never taken her within reasonable distance of them. She had turned back when the frontier was in sight, refusing all knowledge of the things that lay beyond. And here she was, in the very thick of it, at the heart of the unexplored, with her poor terrified eyes uncovered, her face held close to the thing she feared. And yet she had passed through the initiation without terror; she had held her hand in the strange fire and it had not hurt her. She felt only a great penetrating, comprehending, incorruptible pity for her sister who writhed there, consumed and tortured in the flame.

She knelt by the bedside and stretched out her arm and covered her, and Kitty lay still.

"You haven't gone?" she said.

"No, Kitty."

Kitty moved; she sat up and put her hands to her loosened hair.

"I'll see him now," she said.

Kitty slid her feet to the floor. She stood up, steadying herself by the bedside.

Jane looked at her, and her heart was wrung with compassion.

"No," she said, "wait till you're better. I'll tell him."

But Kitty was before her at the door, leaning against it.

"I shall never be better," she said. Her smile was ghastly. She turned to Jane on the open threshold. "He hasn't got the children with him, has he? I don't want to see them."

"You won't see them."

"Can't he come to me?"

She peered down the passage and drew back, and Jane knew that she was afraid of being seen.

"There's nobody about," she said, "they're all in the dining-room."

Still Kitty hesitated.

"Will you come with me?" she said.

Then Jane took her hand and led her to the room where Robert was, and left her with him.

He stood by the hearth, waiting for her. His head was bowed, but his eyes, as she entered, lifted and fixed themselves on her. There had gone from him that air of radiant and unconquerable youth, of innocence, expectant and alert. Instead of it he too wore the mark of experience, of initiation that had meant torture.

"I hope," he said, "you are rested."

"Oh yes."

She stood there, weak and drooping, leaning her weight on one slender hand, spread palm downward on the table.

He drew out a chair for her, and removed his own to the other side of the table, keeping that barrier between them. In his whole manner there was a terrible constraint.

"You've eaten nothing," he said.

Neither had he, she gathered, nor Jane. The trouble she had brought on them was jarring, dislocating, like the shock of bereavement. They had behaved as if in the presence of the beloved dead.

And yet, though he held himself apart, she knew that he had not sent for her to cast her off; that he was yet bound to her by the mysterious, infrangible tie; that he seemed to himself, in some way, her partner and accomplice.

Their silence was a link that bound them, and she broke it.

"Well," she said, "you have something to say to me?"

"Yes"--his hands, spread out on the table between them, trembled--"I have, only it seems so little----"

"Does it? Well, of course, there isn't much to be said."

"Not much. There aren't any words. Only, I don't want you to think that I don't realise what you've done. It was magnificent."

He answered her look of stupefied inquiry.

"Your courage, Kitty, in telling me the truth."

"Oh, _that_. Don't let's talk about it."

"I am not going to talk about it. But I want you to understand that what you told me has made no difference in my--in my feeling for you."

"It must."

"It hasn't. And it never will. And I want to know what we're going to do next."

"Next?" she repeated.

"Yes, next. _Now._"

"I'm going away. There's nothing else left for me to do."

"And I, Kitty? Do you think I'm going to let you go, without----"

She stopped him.

"You can't help yourself."

"What? You think I'm brute enough to take everything you've given me, and to--to let you go like this?"

His hands moved as if they would have taken hers and held them. Then he drew back.

"There's one thing I can't do for you, Kitty. I can't marry you, because it wouldn't be fair to my children."

"I know, Robert, I know."

"I know you know. I told you nothing would ever make any difference. If it weren't for them I'd ask you to marry me to-morrow. I'm only giving you up as you're giving me up, because of them. But if I can't marry you, I want you to let me make things a little less hard for you."

"How?"

"Well, for one thing, I don't believe you've anything to live on."

"What makes you think that?"

"Marston told me that if you married you forfeited your income. I suppose that meant that you had nothing of your own."

"It did."

"You've nothing?"

"My father would give me fifty pounds a year if I kept straight. But he can't afford it. It means that my little sisters go without dresses."

"And you've no home, Kitty?"

She shook her head.

"They can't have me at home, you see."

He sighed.

"If I looked after you, Kitty, do you think you would keep straight? If I made a home for you, somewhere, where you won't be too unhappy?"

"You mean you'd take care of me?"

"Yes. As far as I can."

Her face flushed deeply.

"No," she said. "No. I mustn't let you do that."

"Why not? It's nothing, Kitty. It's the least that I can do. And you'd be very lonely."

"I would. I would be miserable--in between."

"Between?"

"When you weren't there."

"Kitty, dear child, I can't be there."

She shrank back, the flush died out of her face and left it white.

"I see. You didn't mean that I was to live with you?"

"Poor child--no."

"I--I didn't understand."

"No," he said gently, "no."

"You see how hopeless I am?"

"I see what my responsibility would be if I left you to yourself."

"And--_what_ do you want to do?"

"I want to provide for you and your future."

"Dear Robert, you can't possibly provide--for either."

"I can. I've got a little house in the country, if you'll take it, and I can spare enough out of my income."

She smiled.

"You can't afford it."

"If I could afford to marry, I could afford that."

"I see. It's a beautiful scheme, Robert. And in the little house where I'm to live, you will come sometimes, and see me?"

"I think it would be better not."

"And what am I to do, if--if things are too hard for me? And if you are the only one----?"

"_Then_ you're to send for me."

"I see. I've only to send for you and you'll come?"

"Of course I'll come."

"When I can't bear it any longer, am I to send for you?"

"You're to send for me when you're in any trouble, or any difficulty--or any danger."

"And the way out of the trouble--and the difficulty--and the danger?"

"Between us we shall find the way."

"No, Robert. Between us we shall lose it. And we shall never, never find it again."

"You can't trust me, Kitty?"

"I can't trust myself. I know how your scheme would work. I let you do this thing; I go away and live in the dear little house you'll give me; and I let you keep me there, and give me all my clothes and things. And you think that's the way to stop me thinking about you and caring for you? I shall be there, eating my heart out. What else can I do, when everything I put on or have about me reminds me of you, every minute of the day? I'm to look to you for everything, but never to see you until I can bear it no longer. How long do you think I shall bear it? A woman made like me? You know perfectly well what the trouble and the difficulty and the danger is. I shall be in it all the time. And some day I shall send for you and you'll come. Oh yes, you'll come; for you'll be in it, too. It won't be a bit easier for you than it is for me."

She paused.

"You'll come. And you know what the end of that will be."

"You think no other end is possible between a man and a woman?"

"If I do, it's men who have made me think it."

"Have _I_, Kitty?"

"No, not you. I don't say your plan wouldn't work with some other woman. I say it's impossible between you--and me."

"Because you won't believe that I might behave differently from some other men?"

"You _are_ different. And I mean to keep you so."

She rose.

"There's only one way," she said. "We must never see each other again. We mustn't even _think_. I shall go away, and you're not to come after me."

"When?"

"To-morrow. Perhaps to-night."

"And where, Kitty?"

"I don't know."

"You shan't go," he said. "I'll go. You must stay here until we can think of something."

She closed her eyes and drew a hard sigh, as if exhausted with the discussion.

"Robert, dear, would you mind not talking any more to me? I'm very tired."

"If I leave you will you go to bed and rest?"

"I think so. You can say good night."

He rose and came toward her.

"No--don't say it!" she cried. "Don't speak to me!"

She drew back and put her hands behind her as a sign that he was not to touch her.

He stood for a moment looking at her. And as he looked at her he was afraid, even as she was. He said to himself that in that moment she was wise and had done well. For his heart hardly knew its pity from its passion, and its passion from its fear.

And she, seeing that she stood between him and the door, turned aside and made his way clear for him.

And so he left her.