She turned away from the bed with a gesture of disgust.
"Take me out, doctor. I won't see Mary to-day, as you think it better for her to be quiet. Besides, I don't feel well; I am rather dizzy, I should like a glass of water, if you please."
After her glass of water, she left the hospital and walked home rapidly, as miserable, as savage, as all the pangs of jealousy could make her.
For several days she endeavoured to come to some resolution concerning Mary. To love, perhaps to marry this barrister, must of course altogether cut the girl off from the Secret Society. Why, there was but one thing to do—Mary must be removed, must be killed. Yes, Mary, the only thing that she loved must be killed—she was a traitor to the Cause!
Catherine's mind was distraught by the conflicting passions her discovery had excited in her.
She nearly went mad with them.
At one moment she felt that she hated Mary with the greatest of hates, that she could laugh to see her suffer and die before her sight; at another moment, the woman would lie on her solitary bed moaning in despair over her lost love.
And even when her mind was calmer, it was so miserable to sit in the dark little parlour all alone; there was no Mary there now to caress and converse with.
One day she collected all the girl's little effects, her work-box, her two or three books, and after kissing them each passionately a dozen times, put them away together in a cupboard in her own bed-room, where she could visit and kiss them again privately at intervals.