Jacinta turned to her with the colour in her cheeks and a haziness in her eyes.
"I taunted him with being a coward and finding the work too hard for him. The man was ill and jaded, but I had no mercy on him. He said nothing; he never told me he was going back. How was I to know? The night my father's message came I felt I could have struck him. If I had done so, he would probably not have felt it half so much as the bitterness I heaped upon him."
"Ah!" said Mrs. Hatherly. "It was, perhaps, natural under the circumstances, but there is a good deal that you are responsible for."
"What do you mean by under the circumstances?"
Mrs. Hatherly smiled. "I have not the slightest doubt that you quite understand, my dear. The question, however, is how you are going to set it right?"
Jacinta shivered a little. The colour had already ebbed from her face, which was a trifle more pallid than usual.
"It is a thing I may never be able to do," she said. "That is what makes it so hard. You see, a good many men go out to Africa, and so few come back again. If it hadn't been for that I don't think I should have admitted what I have done, but I feel I must have somebody's comprehension—if I can't expect sympathy."
"You have mine, my dear," and Mrs. Hatherly laid a beautiful thin hand gently upon her arm. "Besides, I think Mr. Austin will understand how it came about when he goes back to Africa."
Jacinta straightened herself slowly. "Well," she said, "that may happen, and in any case I know that I sent him, and he was glad to go."
She met the little lady's sympathetic gaze steadily. "Still, that is so very little, after all."