Love and hatred

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

Time went on, and Laura held out; but little by little, perhaps because he saw her so seldom, he broke down her resistance. His father had bought the Lawford Chase estate as a great bargain, many years before, and had been content to let it on a long lease. Godfrey, on becoming his own master at thirty, determined to live there, and his marriage to Laura followed a year later.

During their honeymoon in Paris—a honeymoon which was curiously and painfully unlike what Godfrey had supposed his honeymoon would and must be—he saw in a paper a notice of Katty Fenton's engagement. Though not given to impulsively generous actions, he went out and bought for Katty, in the Rue de la Paix, a jewelled pendant Laura had just refused to allow him to buy for her. In return he had received what had seemed at the time a delightful letter of thanks, to which was the following postscript, "There's no harm in my saying now, that you, dear Godfrey, were my first love! I've always wanted you to know that. I've always been afraid that you only thought me a sad little flirt."

The confession, and the shrewd thrust, which was so much truer than he thought Katty knew, moved him, and he had told himself sorely that Katty's husband at any rate would be a very lucky fellow.

Then once more he had forgotten Katty till one day, years later, "Mrs. Winslow" had suddenly been shown into his private room at the Bank.

Looking, as he had at once become aware, even prettier and more attractive than when he had last seen her, she had said quietly, "I'm in great trouble, Godfrey, and I've come down from London to consult you about it. Your father and mine were friends" (a rather exaggerated statement that—but Pavely was in no mood to cavil), "and I don't know who else to go to."

Shortly and simply she had described the dreadful existence she had led since her marriage—then, suddenly, she had rolled up her right sleeve and shown the livid bruises made by Bob Winslow the night before, in a fit of drunken anger, on the slender, soft, white arm.

Unwontedly moved, the more so that this now unfamiliar Katty seemed to make no excessive demand either on his pity or on his emotions, Godfrey Pavely had thrown himself into the complicated, unsavoury business, and very soon his old-new friend had brought him to advise her in the sense she wished. But it was Laura who had suggested that poor Mrs. Winslow should come and stay with them during the divorce proceedings, and while she had been at Lawford Chase, Katty had avoided, rather than sought out, the master of the house.

In the matter of Rosedean the banker had behaved in what he himself considered a very handsome manner. Not only had he let the house to Katty for about a third of what he could have got for it in the open market, but he had allowed her a hundred pounds for "doing it up." He believed himself to have also suggested the arrangement by which she obtained the free services, for a certain number of half-days each week, of a very intelligent Scotch under-gardener who was in his employ.

He had never had reason to regret his kindness. On the contrary, he and Katty had become, as time went on, closer and closer friends, and more and more had he come to miss her during her frequent absences from home.

Some months ago he had even ventured to tell her that he thought she gadded about a bit too much! Why couldn't she be content to stay quietly at Rosedean? "Look at me and Laura," he had exclaimed. "We hardly ever go away for a holiday, and we very seldom pay a visit!" Katty had shaken her pretty head playfully: "Ah, but you don't know how lonely I am sometimes! Laura is most dear and kind to me, but you know, Godfrey, I don't see her often——"