amiliar, it
was not among the number of things accomplished and irrevocable. It was
simply the thing she had to do.

It possessed her now; and under its dominion she was uplifted, carried
along. Her mind moved toward it with a reckless rocking speed, the
perilous certainty of the insane.

At five o'clock she rang the bell and asked the servant to bring her
some tea. She swallowed a little with a jerk of her throat, and put the
cup down, shuddering. It brought her a sickening memory of yesterday.

At five o'clock she got up and dressed herself and sent a message to
Robert Lucy to see her downstairs in her sitting-room, alone. As she
stood at her glass she said to herself, "How shocking I look. But he
won't mind."

At six he was with her.

She drew her hand away from his as if his touch had hurt her. Her smile
was the still, bloodless smile that comes with pain. She drew her chair
back out of the sunlight, in the recess by the fireplace. He stood
beside her then, looking at her with eyes that loved her the more for
the sad hurt to her beauty. His manner recalled the shy, adolescent
uncertainty of his first approaches.

"Don't you think," he said, "you ought to have stayed in bed?"

She shook her head and struggled to find her voice. It came
convulsively.

"No. I'm better. I'm all right now."

"It was being out in that beastly hot sun yesterday--with those
youngsters. You're not used to it."

She laughed. "No. I'm not used to it. Robert--you haven't told them,
have you?"

"What?"

"About you--and me?"

"No. Not yet." He smiled. "I say, I shall have to tell them very soon,
shan't I?"

"You needn't."

He made some inarticulate sound that questioned her.

"I've changed my mind. I can't marry you."

He had to bend his head to catch her low, indistinct murmur; but he
caught it.

He drew back from her, and leaned against the chimneypiece and looked at
her more intently than before.

"Do you mean," he said quietly, "because of _them_?"

"Yes."

He looked down.

"Poor Kitty," he said. "You think I'm asking too much of you?"

She did not answer.

"You're afraid?"

"I told you I was afraid."

"Yes. But I thought it was all right. I thought you liked them."

She was silent. Tears rose to her eyes and hung on their unsteady
lashes.

"They like you."

She bowed her head and the tears fell.

"Is that what has upset you?"

"Yes."

"I see. You've been thinking it over and you find you can't