It dawned upon him faintly that here somewhere was the key that might solve the riddle presented by her distraught mind, but before he could put the thought into words it had eluded him.
"And what of our covenant?" he stammered--"our old covenant?"
"That was broken long ago," she answered, while in her bitterness a dark flush mounted to her cheek. "It was broken when you both put me aside to play with that white kitten. Neither of you troubled your heads about me then. And when I became engaged, no one asked me why I did it. Even he took no interest. And what I have suffered as wife of an adventurer ... who knows or cares? Or how he bundled me about from racecourse to gambling-saloon, and from gambling-saloon to racecourse. Ah, what a life that was! But why do I talk of myself? I too only got what I deserved."
"What have you to reproach yourself with?" he asked.
She bit her lips and brooded. "Every one of us has something to repent, Leo," she said, after a pause; "I, as well as you. All day and all night I am repenting without ceasing. It is my right. No one can deprive me of it. It is the only way in which I can repair, in some measure, my ruined life."
"And yet you were able to endure that man?" he inquired.
"Wasn't I forced to?" she replied. "If I had left him we should all have been disgraced. When he died in a hospital, I could not be with him, for I was travelling about in order to redeem a cheque that he had forged."
"Johanne!"
Wrath at the conduct of the scoundrel who had wormed himself into his family seized him so hotly that, for a moment, everything swam before him.
Tearless, with her tired smile, she looked up at him. "Till now no human soul has heard of it," she continued. "So you have no need to be ashamed of your sister."