What did other people do when they broke off an engagement or—or were jilted?
Jane tried to remember what she had heard such people did. One girl had been sent on a voyage round the world—another had refused to leave home, she had stayed and "faced it out."
Fortunately she was not compelled to consider either of these alternatives. She was mistress of her own life, and she had already learnt the hard lesson that to deaden pain—heart pain—there is nothing like incessant, unending work. She made up her mind to go to another part of London, and start once more the salvage work which lay on the edge of the great sea strewn with human wreckage.
But before Jane could do this, she must put an end to what had become, certainly to herself, and probably to Lingard also, an intolerable mockery.
Jane found Mabel Digby in bed; and the girl, though but little given to caresses, drew her down and laid her head on the other's kind breast.
"Yes, it's true," she said, "I'm ill, and I don't know what's the matter with me"—she lifted her face and pushed her hair back from her forehead with a tired gesture. "No, I won't lie. I don't see why I should pretend—with you! I'm ill, Jane, because Bayworth Kaye is dead. I lie here thinking—thinking only of Bayworth. It's all so horrible—I mean that he should have died when he was so unhappy. I burnt all his letters the day he went away. You can't think how sorry I am now that I did that, Jane. There was nothing in them, they weren't love letters—at least I don't think so——"
Jane gave a muffled cry of pain.
"Jane, come nearer, and I'll tell you something which may make you think a little less poorly of me. Bayworth did speak to me three years ago, before he first went to India. I have never told anybody—not even his mother, though she was always trying to find out. And when he came back I was so happy—just for a few days—and then, almost at once, he fell into Athena's clutches——"
And as she saw the other make a restless movement of recoil she added, "I suppose you don't believe me, but it's true—horribly true. I saw it all happening, but I could do nothing except feel miserable. I used to think—poor fool that I was—that everything would come right at the last. I thought she would get tired of him, and that I would get what was left." She broke into hard sobs. "She did get tired of him—but too late—too late for me!"