Kitty was supposed to be weak; but when this information was quietly given her by Major Strause, she showed no weakness. Even the pallor left her face, giving place to a rosy red. Just for an instant she staggered; then she regained her self-control, and sat down on her sofa.
"Don't sit on that chair," she said; "come near me and tell me why—why you said such an awful thing as that to me."
Major Strause replied by giving Kitty a full account of the two occasions on which he had seen Mollie and Keith together. He described with vividness and power that hand-clasp and those few words, and then with greater power he got his excitable hearer to understand the look which filled Gavon's eyes and the look which filled Mollie's eyes on the next occasion when he had seen them together. And Kitty, who had been jealous of her sister from the first, gave a heavy, very heavy sigh.
"You need not tell me any more," she said. "I know you are right. I know you have just said what is the truth."
"And you are satisfied to sit down under it?" was the major's remark.
"No, I am not."
"Yet you must be. You are willing to give up your lover to your sister. Your sister is a very fine woman, a very noble woman, and you are willing, for your sister's sake, to submit to this act of extreme renunciation."
"Never!" said Kitty, "never!