“Yes, dear.”
“And there wasn’t any one else; I know that too.”
“Yes.”
“No one else that he cared about ... or who had any claim.... I asked him that before I promised to marry him.”
“Then, dear, there’s nothing more to say—or to do. You can only conclude that he gave you back your freedom because he wanted his.”
“But it was all so quick! How can anybody love one day, and not the next?”
Kate winced. “It does happen so—sometimes.”
“I don’t believe it—not of him and me! And there was the money; I know that. Mother, let me try; let me tell him that you’ve agreed to take it all back; that I shall have only the allowance you choose to make me.”
Mrs. Clephane again sat silent, with lowered head. She had not foreseen this torture.
“Don’t you think, dear, as you’ve written three times and had no answer, that you’d better wait? Better try to forget?”