“But she found somebody else, and that’s just what I’m going to do. I’m not going to have Mark read me a lecture every time I want to do something he doesn’t like. Didn’t your girl find somebody else?”
“No—never. She is still unmarried.”
“Yes—but it wasn’t her fault, was it?”
“Yes—although she did not know it at the time. She opened a door suddenly and found her lover alone with another girl. The two had stolen off together where they would not be interrupted. He was pleading for his college friend—straightening out just some such foolish quarrel as you have had with Mark—but the girl would not understand; nor did she know the truth until a year afterward. Then it was too late.”
The Little Gray Lady stopped, lifted her hand from the girl’s head, and turned her face toward the now dying fire.
“And what became of him?” asked the girl in a hushed voice, as if she dared not awaken the memory.
“He went away and she has never seen him since.”
For some minutes there was silence, then Kate said in a braver tone:
“And he married somebody else?”
“No.”