“Oh!” she said, a sensitive quiver in her voice. “I was so sorry—so terribly sorry—to hear about June. We hadn’t heard—we only knew quite recently.” Her face clouded as she reflected on the tragic happenings with which the news had been accompanied.
At this moment a waitress paused at Storran’s side and he gave his order. Then, looking curiously at Gillian, he said:
“What did you hear? Just that she died when our child was born, I suppose?”
Gillian’s absolute honesty of soul could not acquiesce, though it would have been infinitely the easier course.
“No,” she said, flushing a little and speaking very low. “We heard that she might have lived if—if she had only been—happier.”
He nodded silently, rather as though this was the answer he had anticipated. Presently he spoke abruptly:
“Does Miss Vallincourt know that?”
Gillian hesitated. Then, taking her courage in both hands she told him quickly and composedly the whole story of the engagement and its rupture, and let him understand just precisely what June’s death, owing to the special circumstances in which it had occurred, had meant for Magda of retribution and of heartbreak.
Storran listened without comment, in his eyes an odd look of concentration. The waitress dexterously slid a tray in front of him and he poured himself out a cup of tea mechanically, but he made no attempt to drink it. When Gillian ceased, his face showed no sign of softening. It looked hard and very weary. His strong fingers moved restlessly, crumbling one of the small cakes on the plate in front of him.
“‘Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small,’” he quoted at last, quietly.