“You don’t know Pat. He would never let himself be saved anything at the expense of another, especially a woman.”
“He must never know that part of the story,” said Valeria firmly.
“But, Mrs Cork, I cannot! I feel it in my bones that Quelch will wreak vengeance on some one, and I cannot let you be sacrificed. You have got to think of yourself. Your boy, too—for whom—”
“For whom I stole,” supplemented Valeria. “Ah, my dear, you tell me to think of him! For the last two days I have thought of nothing else. He has lain in my arms, a little chubby baby once more, with his curly head against my breast.”
“He shall never be sacrificed!” cried Loree.
“He is sacrificed already,” said Valeria Cork softly, “by a more just fate than you or I control. He was drowned two days ago while trying to save the life of a friend.”
“O dear God!” whispered Loree pitifully. Now she knew the reason of the other’s sombre, tearless gaze. Nothing could ever hurt more deeply or comfort again that soul bereft.
“So you see,” said Valeria, voicing her thought, “nothing matters.”
She talked down Loree’s protests. She was bent on sacrifice as her just punishment. Almost it seemed as if she craved some other pain as anodyne for that which already ate like a rat at her heart. They talked into the small hours of the morning, formulating plans by which to defeat Quelch, who, they knew, would stick at nothing.
“He told me frankly,” said Valeria, “that there were only two things in the world he cared about—the future of his son and the possession of you. That was in the small hours after the ball when he had just paid down 50,000 pounds to keep scandal from touching you.”