He looked up. “About Henrietta.”
“There’s no need for that.”
“Not for you, perhaps, but there is for me. You were quite right that day. I went home and I made up my mind to break my word to her. I’d made it up before Christabel became so ill. I wanted you to know that. I couldn’t have left her that night—perhaps you hadn’t realized I’d meant to—but anyhow I couldn’t have left her, and I wouldn’t have done it if I could. You were perfectly right.”
Rose moved a little in her saddle. “And yet I had no right to be,” she said. “You and I—”
“Ah,” he said quickly, “you and I were different. I don’t blame myself for that, but with Henrietta it was just devilry, sickness, misery. Don’t,” he commanded, “dare to compare our—our love with that.”
“No,” she said, “no, I don’t think of it at all. It has dropped back where it came from and I don’t know where that is. I don’t think of it any more, but thank you for telling me about Henrietta. Good-bye.”
She moved on, but his voice followed her. “I never loved her.”
She stopped but did not turn. “I know that.”
“Yes, but I wanted to tell you.” He was at the horse’s head again. “I don’t think much of the way those people are keeping your bridle. There’s rust on the curb chain. Look at it. It’s disgraceful! And I’d like to tell you that I tried to make it up to Christabel at the last. Too late—but she was happy. Good-bye. Tell those people they ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
“I suppose we all ought to be,” Rose said wearily.