“I said the cat had gone.”
“Then you knew?”
Rose shook her head. It was her turn to smile. She was prepared for anything Christabel might say, she was even anxious to hear it, but when Christabel spoke in a mysteriously gleeful manner, she had difficulty in repressing a shudder. It was not, she told herself, that she suffered from the knowledge now imparted by Christabel with detail and with proofs, but her malice, her salacious curiosity were more than Rose could bear. She felt that the whole affair, which at first, so long ago, had possessed a noble sadness, a secret beauty, the quality of a precious substance enclosed in a common vial, was indecent and unclean.
“So you see,” Christabel said, “you haven’t kept him; you won’t keep Henrietta.”
Rose said nothing. She was thinking of what she might have done and she was glad she had not done it.
“You don’t seem to mind,” Christabel said. “Why don’t you ask me why I’m so sure?” She laughed. “I ought to know how to find things out by this time, and I know Francis, yes, better than you do. When I had my accident—it wasn’t worth it, was it?—I said to myself, “Now he won’t be faithful to me.” When I knew I should have to lie here, I told myself that. And now you—” Her voice almost failed her. “I suppose you haven’t been kind enough to him.”
“I think it’s time I went,” Rose said.
“And you’ll never come back?”
“Yes, if you want me.”
“I can say what I like to you.”