"Lionel," she reasoned, "I don't think I've ever really been in love in my life and you're the only man I ever met that made me want to—no, no! Please, Lionel, listen to me," she held him gently away from her—"made me want to run away. Now I'm going to tell you what the palm-reader said," she continued, purposely avoiding the name of Robert Baxter.
"You don't really believe that tommyrot?"
"I do this time because what he told me is going to come true." She placed her hands on his shoulders with an affectionate movement. "He told me I'm going to have heaps and heaps of money! Lionel, aren't you glad?"
There was something far from gladness in Kate's own voice and Lionel's heart sank in utter desolation.
His thoughts flew back to the day of their first meeting three months ago—to the first time she had called him "Cousin Lionel"—to the time when somehow or other they had dropped the "cousin" and were Lionel and Kate to one another—three milestones on the road that led to—where might it not lead to? And now she was turning back. Where? He reflected that he knew nothing of Kate's world before she had come to Ipping House. From time to time there had been letters for her with German or Swiss postage stamps. That was all.
"So you see," Kate was going on, "it's a case of Hobson's choice. There's nothing else to be done. My money's all gone. Old Baxter has behaved like a brick, but I can't bank on him forever, and now if I—if I marry Bob——" she broke off with the sound of a laugh.
Lionel shivered. He seized her hand which showed dimly white at his side. It was like ice. It slipped from him upward and his ear caught the multitudinous whisper of chiffons.
"Come on," she said.
He rose stupidly and followed her in the darkness.
Half an hour later, as they approached Ipping House, Kate saw what seemed like a shadowy figure that glided past the conservatory and disappeared.