'What do you take me for?' said Doll fiercely.
'A good man,' said Mr. Loftus, 'and the person I care for most in the world.'
Sibyl's letter to Mr. Loftus was never written. At least it was written, as, indeed, were several, and read over and retouched at night in her own room; but even the best of the assortment remained unposted. Sibyl brought back her wan face and limp figure to Wilderleigh a few hours after Doll had left it, and heard with bitterness that he had been staying there. She had pictured to herself Mr. Loftus alone, missing her at every moment of the day, realizing the withdrawal of the sunshine of her presence. This was a 'high jump,' on the bar of which, it must be owned, even her practised imagination caught its toe. And now she found that Doll had been with him all the time—Doll, whom he cared for more than for his wife. He had not missed her, after all. Probably he and Doll had been discussing her. She had been jealous of Doll ever since she had seen Mr. Loftus take his arm during her first visit to Wilderleigh before she was married.
Her jealousy revived now. For the remainder of the day Sibyl met Mr. Loftus with averted eyes and monosyllabic answers, rehearsing in her mind parting scenes with him which were to prove more poignantly distressing to him than the best of the letters, and in which he was to appeal in vain (imagination caught its toe once more) against her irrevocable determination to leave for ever one who had married her for other motives than love.
She could see herself in evening dress, pale as the jasmine flower in her breast, mournful but unflinching, withdrawing her hand, and saying, in reply to the moving representation which he would of course make of his loneliness:
'You have Doll!'
She decided that she would not say more than that. No reproach should pass her lips.
'You have Doll!'
What words for a young wife to be forced to use to her husband! Her hands clenched in an agony of self-pity. What a cruel situation was hers!