"Yes, I am saying horrible things," went on Kit, with a strange calmness in her voice; "but I am telling you the truth, and the truth is horrible. The truth about a wicked person like me cannot be nice. You interrupted me. I went, as I told you, but when I got there I drove away again. I was not so wicked as I thought I was."
Lily gave a great sigh of relief. But she had not seen the Other Thing yet.
"Oh, my poor Kit," she said; "I am so sorry for you; but—but you see the same thing lies before me. But fear it? I thank God for it every moment of my life. Cannot you forget pain, risk, danger of death, even in that? Nothing in this world seems to me to matter when perhaps soon one will be a mother. A mother—oh, Kit! I would not change places with anyone in earth or heaven."
Kit did not look up.
"It is different for you," she said.
"Different? How different?" she asked; but a sudden misgiving shook her voice. Outlines of the Other Thing were discernible.
A sudden spasm of impatience seized Kit.
"Ah, you are stupid!" she cried. "You good people are always stupid."
There was a long silence, and during that silence Lily knew Kit's secret, and as with everyone the world of trivial things swarmed into her mind. She heard the ticking of the clock, the low boom of life outside, the rustle of Kit's dress as she moved slightly. Something perfectly direct had to be said by the one or the other; anything else would be as out of place as a remark on the weather to a dying man.
"What am I to do?" asked Kit at length simply.