Rainham had sunk into a chair wearily; he looked up at her now, drawing a long breath, which, for some reason he could not analyse, was replete with relief.
"Married?" he ejaculated; "are you sure?"
"Sure enough," said Kitty Crichton. "He told me so."
"Do you care for this fellow?" he asked curiously after a while.
The flush on her face had faded into two hectic spots on either cheek; there was a lack of all animation in her voice, whether of hope or indignation; she had the air of a person who gave up, who was terribly tired of things.
"Care?" she echoed. "I don't rightly know, sir; I think it's all dead together—love and anger, and my good looks and all. I care for the child, and I don't want to harry or hunt him down for the sake of what has been,—that's all."
He regarded her with the same disinterested pity which had seized him when he saw her first. There were only ruins of a beauty that must have once been striking. As he watched her a doubt assailed him, whether, after all, he had not been deceived by a bare resemblance; whether, in effect, she had ever been actually identical with that brilliant Pierrette whose likeness had so amazed him in Lightmark's rooms.
"By the way," he asked suddenly, "you told me you have been a model: did—was this man a painter? Has he ever painted you?"
The girl fell back a step or two irresolutely.
"Ah! why do you trouble so? What does it matter?" Then she added faintly, but hurriedly stumbling over her words: