"That is your affair. I'm afraid I can't help you in it. But Arthur is mine. I'm not going to see him dragged into this … impossibility. No … we can't discuss it like this. You may be as innocent as you pretend to be—though it's difficult to believe it. You imagine you're in love. You're drifting out of an ordinary sort of friendship into … what I saw to-night. Well, that can only lead to the most awful unhappiness for all of us. You must consider it finished. We won't have any disturbance; but, all the same, you can't see Arthur again. We'll invent some reason to explain your going away to-morrow … something plausible … to satisfy him. With your husband it will be more difficult. But I'm prepared to help you. It can be managed without any scandal if we work together… I'm sure you'll agree with me and be sensible about it. If you won't, I can't answer for the consequences."
Mrs. Payne was presuming too much. All the time that she spoke Gabrielle sat with lowered eyes, motionless but for little protesting movements of her hands; now she turned upon her, speaking very low and rapidly.
"You think I can give him up? You think it's possible? Love … the only thing I want! The thing I've never had! Happiness… Why should you ruin our happiness? You've had yours. Oh, you're selfish. I shan't give him up if he wants me. Ask him yourself if he loves me… Ah, you're afraid. You daren't. You daren't!"
She almost laughed, and Mrs. Payne knew that she had spoken the truth. It looked, for a moment, as if she were going to be beaten on this point, for Gabrielle snatched at her weakness, repeating the unanswerable "You daren't!" Then, suddenly, without any warning, the girl's triumphant spirit collapsed. From the verge of laughter she toppled over into tears. She put her hands to her eyes and then, turning her back on Mrs. Payne, collapsed on her bed, weeping bitterly.
At the sight of this thankfulness flooded Mrs. Payne's heart; but beneath this dominant emotion, which came almost as the result of her conscious wish, flowed another that she would gladly have suppressed: pity, nothing less, for the child who lay sobbing on the bed. A minute before she had seen in Gabrielle her most dangerous enemy in the world; now, even though she rejoiced in the girl's sudden collapse, she felt that she wanted to take her in her arms and kiss her and comfort her. For a moment or two she fought against it, but in the end, scarcely knowing what she had done, she found that she was fondling Gabrielle's hand and being shaken by the communicated passion of her sobs. One thought kept running through her brain: "I've won … I've won, and can afford to be generous," and this, together with the curious physical liking that she had always felt for Gabrielle, disarmed her. She set herself to comforting the child. It was the last thing in the world she had intended to do, but it came natural to her motherly soul. She was glad, indeed, that Gabrielle did not resent these attentions, as she very well might have done. Gradually her sobbing ceased and she began to speak, clinging all the time to Mrs. Payne, herself not guiltless of a sympathetic tear, while she told her the story of her early years: of the wild life she had led at Roscarna, of Jocelyn's debauches and Biddy's rough mothering.
It was the first time that all this flood of reminiscence had been loosed. Gabrielle had never made a confidante before, and it was an ecstasy of tears and laughter to dwell upon these memories, and to rehearse them. "I was so happy as a child," she said, "so awfully happy. But now there's nothing left."
Mrs. Payne, still sympathetic, found herself suddenly plunged into the ardours of the Radway affair; the miraculous meeting on the Clonderriff road; the halcyon days of August, and then the overwhelming tragedy.
"They made me marry him," said Gabrielle, clutching at her hand. "They made me. I didn't understand. It was cruel. It would have been better if I had died like my baby."
She relapsed into tears, and Mrs. Payne, quite bowled over by the piteousness of her case, tried to soothe her with caresses. It was a curious end, she reflected, to the punitive expedition on which she had set forth. Holding Gabrielle triumphantly in her arms she did not realize the mistake that she had made. It wasn't the end at all, it was merely the beginning.
"You see what a terrible time I've had," Gabrielle pleaded, drying her tears. "I always felt that you were the only person I could talk to about these things. I knew you would sympathize … you're so human. Now you can understand why I can't live without Arthur. Do you see?" She looked up, pleading, into Mrs. Payne's eyes.