An impotent fear held Norval. Katherine was there, and Donelle had gone to Tom Gavot! That was about all he could take in. Suddenly Katherine Norval's face softened, her head dropped, she looked terribly ill and haggard.
"Please, Jim," she pleaded, "sit down, I must tell you something I came here to tell you, and I'm not very strong."
Norval sat down, still repeating in his clogged thoughts:
"Donelle has gone to Tom Gavot."
"I suppose," Katherine's words ran along, at times sinking into Norval's confused brain, "I suppose I had to pass through a certain phase of life, as many do. I had been so sheltered, so, well suppressed by my training and experience. Then, when I believed I could write, I felt I could not resist the thing that rose up in me. I almost hated you because you seemed to stand between me and my—my rights. Then for a time I was bewildered by my success, and when he, the man I told you about, came into my life, I was driven astray! He seemed to see only me, my life. He subjugated everything to my wishes. He was getting for me what I did not know how to get for myself; recognition and—and a great deal of money. Jim, I, who had never earned a penny! It was wonderful! Then, I was taken ill and he wanted me to get my divorce and marry him at once. I tried to, I really felt it was right, I wanted to, but as soon as I saw him in the light of a husband, Jim, a dreadful revulsion came. I kept seeing you, in him. I wonder if you can understand? When he came to my room I saw you and when I saw him I was afraid. It seemed so fearfully wrong.
"I was sent away into the hills where it was cold. I had had pneumonia and the doctors thought I should have the mountain treatment. I would not let him come, Jim. I went alone, and I was so lonely; so miserable——" Katherine was weeping desolately and sopping the tears up with her delicate handkerchief.
"Often I longed to die and be put under the snow, where it would be warmer and I could forget. And then I began to think of you, Jim, as I never had before. I saw you always patient with my moods, always kind. I saw you so humble about your great talent, trying so hard to hide it and live down to me! Yes, Jim, down to me. And then I hated myself and the silly ideas I had had. I was afraid to die until I told you. I was afraid to go to our—our baby, until you understood. And so I came back, Jim, and I found that girl—here. Oh! Jim, I may have only a little while to stay, please go with me for the rest of the way!"
Katherine stretched out her thin hands.
But Norval did not move. He stood looking at the woman before him with compassionate eyes, but his soul saw Donelle. Alone in the midst of all this trouble stood Donelle who had done no wrong, who had come into her great love with trust and purity. Must she be the sacrifice? She, for whom he hungered and thirsted with the best that was in him?
And yet, if he defended Donelle's claim, could he hope to make Katherine, make any one, believe that he was not seeking his own ends first, Donelle's afterward? The easiest thing to do may often be the bravest, and after a moment Norval made his choice.