“You are my husband’s friend,” she said—“in his confidence; you know and have shared, no doubt, the secrets of his past. Was it not enough to force upon me the daily insult of this Davis creature’s presence, but he must make a jest through her lips of other infamies in which it seems they were both implicated? Who is this Kit, I say?”
Now, one thing, in his astonishment, was made clear to Hamilton. Kate was as innocent of Kit as Kit of Kate. That reassurance was consoling, though it left him more confounded than ever as to the identity of the strange being.
“On my honour, cousin,” he said, “I have no idea.”
“You have not?”
“Not a shadow of one. But, whoever she is, if she she is, what reason have you to connect Phil with her?”
She made a sound of scorn.
“What reason? Am I deaf and blind to all hints and innuendoes—to their conspiracy to mock me with veiled references to the part she has played in his life? O, reason, indeed!”
“I think, on my soul, you are letting your imagination master you. Has he ever really confessed to this Kit?”
“You did not hear him? No, it was before you came. He did as much, referring to her as the substance of happiness for which he had exchanged its shadow—the shadow—the wife—O, I am in truth a shadow of a wife!”
“Then, I say, if that be so, he deserves no mercy.”