Cora uttered a swift and smothered cry. Kindelon gave a terrible start. Then a silence followed. It seemed to Pauline a most appreciable silence. She meant and wished to break it, yet her speech kept defying her will, and resisted her repeated effort at due control. But at length she said, looking straight at Kindelon,—
"I have heard—I did not mean to hear—I don't want you to say a single word—there is nothing for you to say. I simply appear before you—before you both! I—I think that is enough. I know every thing now. You ... must have been certain that if I had previously known—that if you had not told me a falsehood I ... I ... should never...."
And then poor Pauline reeled giddily, putting forth both hands in a piteous, distraught way.... When Kindelon caught her she had already lost consciousness....
The sense of blank was a most acute one when she awoke. Her first clear thought was, "How long have I been unconscious?" ... And then came remembrance, and with remembrance the pain of a deep-piercing hurt.
No one was near by except Mrs. Dares. Pauline lay upon a lounge; she felt the yielding of cushions beneath her head and shoulders. Her first audible sign of revived consciousness was a little tremulous laugh.
"That's you, Mrs. Dares?" she then said. "I—I must have fainted. How funny of me! I—I never fainted before."
Mrs. Dares put both arms about her, and kissed her twice, thrice, on the cheek.
"My poor, dear, unhappy lady!" she said. "I am sorry—so miserably sorry."
Pauline repeated her tremulous laugh. She was beginning to feel the reassertion of physical strength. "I—I came here to see only you, Mrs. Dares," she now said, "but it was fated otherwise. And ... and yet it has all been better—far better." Here she laughed again, and a little hysterically. "Oh, how superb a failure I've made of it, haven't I? I thought the 'Morning Monitor' had dealt me my last coup. But one other still remained!"
She lay silent for some little time, after this, and when Mrs. Dares presently spoke to her the lids which had dropped over her eyes did not lift themselves. It was so sweet, so tender, so exquisitely gentle a voice that it brought not the slightest exciting consequences.