"I do not wish to hear anything, Margaret, not anything," she repeated vehemently.
"But evidently there's no secret about this whatever. Every one, so Haig says, knows the whole story in Paris. The affair has been going on for ever so long; only until Madame St. Leger's husband died, of course, there couldn't be any question of marriage. I don't mean to imply the smallest harm. Haig says there never has been the slightest scandal. But her husband was years and years her senior, and she is very beautiful—Haig raves about her. I have never heard him so enthusiastic over any one. And he was told Adrian has been in—"
"I refuse to hear anything more. I will not, Margaret—no—no—I will not. This is a wicked fabrication. I do not believe it. It is not true, I tell you—it is not true," Joanna panted, her finger-nails tearing at the brickwork.
"But what possible object could Haig have in repeating the story if it wasn't true? I'm awfully sorry to put you in such a fuss, Nannie, but Haig believes it implicitly himself. There isn't the least doubt of that. And when one comes to think, it does explain Adrian's behavior when he was with us. One sees, of course, how improbable it is that a young man like him should not have some attachment which—"
Joanna quitted the sheltering wall, and came toward the speaker, holding up her hands—the finger-tips frayed and reddened—with a threatening gesture.
"Go away, Margaret!" she cried passionately. "Go away! Leave me alone—you had much better. This story is false—it is false, I tell you. And I forbid you to repeat it. I will not listen. I will not have it said. Go—or I may do something dreadful to you. Go—and never speak to me again about this—never dare to do so—never—never—do you hear?"
"Really, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Nannie," the other protested, half angry, half frightened. "I'm positively astonished at your making such an exhibition of yourself—"
But Joanna laid hold of her by the shoulders, and pushed her back forcibly through the open window, into the center of the quiet, softly lighted room.
"Take your candle and go," she said, and her face was terrible, forbidding argument or rebuke. "This is a wicked falsehood, concocted by some jealous person who is trying to alienate Adrian's affection from me. Who that person is I do not know. I had better not know. It is all very cruel, very dreadful; but I want no explanations, or questions, or advice. Above all I want no sympathy. I only want to be alone.—And I warn you, Margaret, if you ever betray what has happened here to-night I will take my own life. I shall be certain to find you out sooner or later, and I will not survive betrayal, so my death will lie at your door. Remember that, if you are tempted to gossip about me with Mr. Challoner or Marion Chase.—And now, pray, go away, and leave me to myself. That is all I ask of you. Don't call Isherwood and send her to me. I want nothing—nobody. If she came I should not let her in. Go away—here is your candle—go away and leave me alone!"
Joanna locked the door behind her sister, came back to the middle of the room and stood there motionless, her arms stiffly extended. She had no words, no thoughts, but an ache through mind and body of blank misery, at once incomprehensible and deadening from its very completeness. Presently she blew out the lights. They irritated her as showing her definite objects, her own reflection in the cheval glass beside the dressing-table, her diary and silver writing-set upon the slab of the open bureau, all the ornaments and fittings of her bedroom. She called on the darkness to cover her, and to cover these things also, blotting remembrance of them out. She needed to make her loneliness more lonely, her solitude more unmitigated and absolute.