"How long did you think I could stand it? I'm not made of—of—of soap! You know Harry! You liked him, didn't you? And you knew Lady Tristram! I've slept in this room two nights and——"
"You haven't seen a ghost?"
"Ghost! Oh, don't be silly. I've lain here awake, looking at that picture. And it's looked at me—at least it seemed to. 'What are you doing here?' That's what it's been saying. 'What are you doing here?' No, I'm not mad. That's what I was saying myself. But the picture seemed to say it."
There was a most satisfactory absence of Gainsborough about all this.
"Then I go into the Long Gallery! It's no better there!" Her hands were flung out despairingly.
"You seemed to have settled down so well," murmured Mina.
"Settled down! What was there to do? Oh, you know I hadn't! I can't bear it, Mina, and I won't. Isn't it hard? I should have loved it all so, if it had been really mine, if it had come to me properly. And now—it's worse than nothing!" She sat back in her chair with her face set in a desperate unhappiness.
"It is yours; it did come to you properly," Mina protested. Her sympathy tended always toward the person she was with, her sensitive mind responding to the immediate appeal. She thought more of Cecily now than of Harry, who was somewhere—vaguely somewhere—in London.
"You say that?" cried Cecily angrily. "You, Harry's friend! You, who fought and lied—yes, lied for him. Why did you do all that if you think it's properly mine? How can I face that picture and say it's mine? It's a detestable injustice. Ah, and I did—I did love it so."