“I know you do. I don’t mean to say that in your way you may not love him as much as I do. We shan’t quarrel about that. I only want you to understand why I was hurt because he wouldn’t tell me what he’d done. Since he was a boy I’ve thought his thoughts, I’ve lived his life, I’ve done his deeds—I’ve been sorry for the foolish ones and proud of the good ones—I’ve been his other self. It was hard that I shouldn’t have a share in the happiest moment he ever had—when he married you. It hurt me. I’d give my body and my soul—if I had one—for him. He had no right to leave me out and hide what he was doing.”
“It was my fault,” said Katharine. “It was foolish of me to make him marry me at all, as things were then. I’ve thought of it since. Suppose that we had changed our minds, after it was done—we were married, you know—we couldn’t have got out of it.”
“If you changed your mind, as you call it, I wouldn’t forgive you,” said Mrs. Ralston, as sternly as a man could have spoken.
Katharine looked at her in silence for a moment.
“Yes,” she answered, gravely. “I think that if I changed my mind now, you’d try and kill me. You needn’t be afraid.”
Mrs. Ralston returned her gaze, and her features gradually relaxed into a peaceful smile.
“In old times I should,” she said. “I believe I’m that kind of woman. But we’re not going to quarrel about which loves him best, my dear—though I believe we’re both capable of committing any folly for him,” she added.
“Yes. We are,” said Katharine. “And I don’t suppose that we could say so to any one else but each other in the world.”
“I’m glad you feel that. So do I. And Jack knows it all without our telling him. At least, he should, by this time.”
“Do men ever know?” asked Katharine.