“What difference will it make, if she means to marry you?”
“Why—the immense difference of her feeling for you. She’s dreadfully hurt ... she’s very miserable....”
“But absolutely determined?”
Again he made an embarrassed gesture of acquiescence.
Kate Clephane stood looking about the rich glaring room. She felt like a dizzy moth battering itself to death against that implacable blaze. She closed her lids for an instant.
“I shall tell her, then; I shall tell her the truth,” she said suddenly.
He stood in the doorway, his hard gaze upon her. “Well, tell her—do tell her; if you want never to see her again,” he said.
XX.
HE must have been very sure of her not acting on his final challenge, or he would not have dared to make it. That was the continuous refrain of Kate Clephane’s thoughts as the train carried her down to Long Island the next morning.
“He’s convinced I shall never tell her; but what if I do?” The thought sustained her through the long sleepless night, and gave her the strength and clearness of mind to decide that she must at once see Anne, however little her daughter might desire the meeting. After all, she still had that weapon in her depleted armoury: she could reveal the truth.