It was Kate who comforted her mother. But in the midst of her soothing caresses, a sudden trembling seized her. The color fled out of her cheeks.
"Mother! What was that you said—A murder—?"
So at last the truth came, the truth which Mahaly and the few who loved Kate had tried to keep out of that peaceful chamber. Jacques Benoix had gone from her side to prison for the killing of her husband.
As soon as she was strong enough to travel—indeed before she was strong enough to travel—Kate went to her lover in prison; saw him for ten minutes alone.
She wasted not a moment in preliminaries; there had already developed in her that ability for affairs that was later to make her one of the foremost women of her State.
"I have engaged the best lawyers to be had for money," she said. "You will never go to the penitentiary, Jacques!"
He shook his head, his eyes roaming over her hungrily, imprinting every detail of her beauty on his memory to stay. "It is of no use, my dear one."
She blenched a little. "You mean—you did kill Basil? But no! I don't believe it. You kill a man?" she laughed. "Why, you could not kill a fox, a rabbit!"
"Nevertheless," he said, "I fear that I did kill Basil."
She caught at the doubt in his words. "You 'fear'—you do not know, Jacques?"