“I was introduced to you at a benefit for the Orphans; I served cream. I didn’t expect you to remember me,” Cis answered.
“You have a face to be remembered,” Jeanette Lucas said. “We had hard work tracing you. We—I, rather—wanted to find the girl who——” she broke off; her low, husky notes gave way to a strident tone in her voice. She waved her hands as if she were throwing something away. “See here, Miss Adair, we’ve got to talk frankly, as one girl to another. There has been too much between us to beat about the bush, to try for foolish, futile disguises of speech.”
“I never like them,” said Cis.
“Then—why did you do what you did? Do you know—have you ever known—Herbert Dale?” demanded Jeanette, speaking with such eagerness that she could hardly enunciate.
“Never. I’ve seen him,” replied Cis.
“But you knew that night who he was; you knew it was something concerning me nearly, horribly, tragically nearly. How?”
“He called you often; we get used to voices and ways on the wire, Miss Lucas. All the world knew from the papers that you were to be married; that’s easy to explain,” Cis answered gently.
“What was your motive? Why did you connect me with that wire? Did you hate him, or me?” asked Jeanette.
“Oh, Miss Lucas, why do you say that? Can’t you see why I did it?” cried Cis distressed. “I’d been admiring you; you’re so pretty, so fine, so good, so stainless! It made me sick to think that you might be walking into unhappiness, blind, tricked. I did what I’d want done for me in your place; I put you where you could know, and then whatever you did, you’d do with your eyes open. I wanted you to have a square deal, dear Miss Lucas.”
“At first I loathed you, I would have punished you,” cried Jeanette. “But even at first I knew that I could not marry him. I tried to think I could, that I’d be a St. Monica, but no, oh, no! I could not see him; I could not think of him; he was a painted mummy case that held another body, not the body in which my heart was buried. It was not hatred, it was worse—distrust, horror! He was not only wicked, but he was deceiving. Oh, Cicely Adair, when you put me on that wire you killed innocent, poor young Jeanette Lucas! I don’t know what it has done to me; I shall go on, but never again the girl who answered your call that awful night. We don’t lightly break a promise to marry, we Catholics, but Father Lennon said that I could not marry a man from whom I shrank with horror. I am not going to marry. But I’m not blaming you. I have been blessing you through long, black hours of day and night, all alike dark! I should have died if I had discovered that my husband was a liar, wicked. I thought that I should cure his one defect, his indifference to religion. I know now that he was false to all things, to me as well as to God! Cicely Adair, you’re a Catholic girl; remember this lesson when you think of marrying. I am grateful to you, but, oh, I loved him, I loved him, and he never lived! I can’t mourn the loss of the man I loved; there was no such man. You can put flowers on a grave. I myself am the only grave I have: I am dead, but the man I loved never lived. Oh, me, oh, me!”