She slipped upon the floor and dropped her face upon the girl’s knee, sobbing.
Betty bent over her, putting her arms round the heaving shoulders, and pleading with her to speak. Was there something more to be told, something she did not know?
“Yes, yes. Oh, I ought to have told you long ago—but I have always been afraid and ashamed. It has made everything so much worse. I was afraid you would not understand and would think me wicked—wicked.”
It was Betty who now lost a shade of colour. But she held the slim little body closer and kissed her sister’s cheek.
“What have you been afraid and ashamed to tell me? Do not be ashamed any more. You must not hide anything, no matter what it is, Rosy. I shall understand.”
“I know I must not hide anything, now that all is over and father is coming. It is—it is about Mr. Ffolliott.”
“Mr. Ffolliott?” repeated Betty quite softly.
Lady Anstruthers’ face, lifted with desperate effort, was like a weeping child’s. So much so in its tear-wet simpleness and utter lack of any effort at concealment, that after one quick look at it Betty’s hastened pulses ceased to beat at double-quick time.
“Tell me, dear,” she almost whispered.
“Mr. Ffolliott himself does not know—and I could not help it. He was kind to me when I was dying of unkindness. You don’t know what it was like to be drowning in loneliness and misery, and to see one good hand stretched out to help you. Before he went away—oh, Betty, I know it was awful because I was married!—I began to care for him very much, and I have cared for him ever since. I cannot stop myself caring, even though I am terrified.”
Betty kissed her again with a passion of tender pity. Poor little, simple Rosy, too! The tide had crept around her also, and had swept her off her feet, tossing her upon its surf like a wisp of seaweed and bearing her each day farther from firm shore.
“Do not be terrified,” she said. “You need only be afraid if—if you had told him.”
“He will never know—never. Once in the middle of the night,” there was anguish in the delicate face, pure anguish, “a strange loud cry wakened me, and it was I myself who had cried out—because in my sleep it had come home to me that the years would go on and on, and at last some day he would die and go out of the world—and I should die and go out of the world. And he would never know—even KNOW.”
Betty’s clasp of her loosened and she sat very still, looking straight before her into some unseen place.
“Yes,” she said involuntarily. “Yes,
Lady Anstruthers fell back a little to gaze at her.
“YOU know? YOU know?” she breathed. “Betty?”
But Betty at first did not speak. Her lovely eyes dwelt on the far-away place.
“Betty,” whispered Rosy, “do you know what you have said?”
The lovely eyes turned slowly towards her, and the soft corners of Betty’s mouth deepened in a curious unsteadiness.
“Yes. I did not intend to say it. But it is true.
Rosalie flung her arms round her waist and for a moment hid her face.
“YOU! YOU!” she murmured, but stopped herself almost as she uttered the exclamation. “I will not ask you,” she said when she spoke again. “But now I shall not be so ashamed. You are a beauty and wonderful, and I am not; but if you KNOW, that makes us almost the same. You will understand why I broke down. It was because I could not bear to think of what will happen. I shall be saved and taken home, but Nigel will wreak revenge on HIM. And I shall be the shame that is put upon him—only because he was kind—KIND. When father comes it will all begin.” She wrung her hands, becoming almost hysterical.
“Hush,” said Betty. “Hush! A man like that CANNOT be hurt, even by a man like Nigel. There is a way out— there IS. Oh, Rosy, we must BELIEVE it.”
She soothed and caressed her and led her on to relieving her long locked-up misery by speech. It was easy to see the ways in which her feeling had made her life harder to bear. She was as inexperienced as a girl, and had accused herself cruelly. When Nigel had tormented her with evil, carefully chosen taunts, she had felt half guilty and had coloured scarlet or turned pale, afraid to meet his sneeringly smiling face. She had tried to forget the kind voice, the kindly, understanding eyes, and had blamed herself as a criminal because she could not.
“I had nothing else to remember—but unhappiness—and it seemed as if I could not help but remember HIM,” she said as simply as the Rosy who had left New York at nineteen might have said it. “I was afraid to trust myself to speak his name. When Nigel made insulting speeches I could not answer him, and he used to say that women who had adventures should train their faces not to betray them every time they were looked at.
“Oh!” broke from Betty’s lips, and she stood up on the hearth and threw out her hands. “I wish that for one day I might be a man—and your brother instead of your sister!”
“Why?”
Betty smiled strangely—a smile which was not amused— which was perhaps not a smile at all. Her voice as she answered was at once low and tense.
“Because, then I should know what to do. When a male creature cannot be reached through manhood or decency or shame, there is one way in which he can be punished. A man—a real man—should take him by his throat and lash him with a whip—while others look on—lash him until he howls aloud like a dog.”
She had not expected to say it, but she had said it. Lady Anstruthers looked at her fascinated, and then she covered her face with her hands, huddling herself in a heap as she knelt on the rug, looking singularly small and frail.
“Betty,” she said presently, in a new, awful little voice, “I—I will tell you something. I never thought I should
