“No. The letter was only found and posted after the ones that told us of David’s death. And I have told my father nothing.”
Mrs. Carey broke into vehement, hysterical speech.
“There’s nothing to tell! You people at home make such mountains out of molehills. I swear to you that there was nothing between us, that I never——”
Flora interrupted her.
“He told me everything,” she repeated. “He told me that the case would be undefended, and that he was coming home to marry you. So you see I know.”
“You! What can you, who’ve never married, never seen anything of life, know of things? You see evil where none exists—you’re like all these good and holy people ... intolerant....” Tears poured unchecked down her face, making streaks across the white powder. “You don’t even begin to know what I’ve gone through. My husband is a beast—a beast. You don’t know what that means.”
She flung herself backwards, almost prone, and wept hysterically.
“What are you going to do?” said Flora.
“Kill myself!”
The rhetorical answer came almost automatically.