“There is but one thing for me to do.”
“You mean—”
“I will go to her; we must be remarried—for I have other news for you; this gentleman, Mr. Webster, has brought me other news—my first wife, Kathleen Weir, is dead.”
A half-cry broke from Mrs. Temple’s white lips, and that was all. She stood there with wide-open eyes and heaving breast. John Temple’s news was a death-blow to her new hopes of happiness and love, but still she could speak no word.
“It seems,” went on John Temple, scarcely daring to look at her white face, “that this Mr. Webster knew all the time where May was—at some hospital or other—but by May’s especial wish he kept this a secret.”
“And she calls this love!” cried Mrs. Temple, wildly and passionately. “Love! to make you endure such pain; to make your life a burden; each day a fresh pang! If this is love, I know not what it is.”
“It seems strange,” said John Temple, and then without another word he went away.
An hour or so later two men were sitting in the same railway carriage together traveling to town, but they were not talking of the loves or the tragedies of their lives. They were talking gravely of the passing topics of the day, of politics, of books, and the names of May Churchill and Kathleen Weir were never once mentioned between them. Not at least until they reached the terminus and were about to separate for the night. Then as they shook hands, John Temple said quietly: “At what time will you see May in the morning?”
“Early,” answered Webster; “about eleven o’clock.”