Felix swayed unsteadily, and gripped a chair-back for support.
“You've got—the woman—What do you mean?” he said at last.
“Mike saw her at the police-station. They've put her in a cell.”
“Arrested?”
“Yes, for stealin'.”
Involuntarily his fingers brushed his throat as if he were choking, but no words came. He had been all his life accustomed to surprises, some of them appalling, but against this, for the instant, he had no power to stand.
Kitty stood watching the quivering of his lips and the drawn, strained muscles about his jaw and neck as his will power whipped them back to their normal shape. She was convinced now of the truth of her suspicions—the woman was not only interwoven with his past, but was closely identified with his present anguish.
She drew closer, her voice rising. “Ye'll go with me, won't ye, Mr. Felix?” she went on, hiding under an assumed indifference all recognition of his struggle. “Father Cruse told me if I ever come across her again, and there wasn't time to get hold of him, to let ye know.”
“I will go anywhere, where Father Cruse thinks I should, Mrs. Cleary—especially in cases of this kind, where I may be of use.” The words had come from between partly closed lips; his hands were still tightly clinched. “And you say she was arrested—for stealing?”
“Yes, shopliftin', they call it. Poor creatures, they get that miserable and trodden on they don't know right from wrong!”