“You will come back in a few days,” Kitty said, and Connie replied: “Perhaps; I can’t tell. I will write, and now please leave me to rest a little; I am very tired.”
She wanted to be alone, and think whether to tell Kenneth or not. The hardest of all was leaving him, for life was very sweet with him, even if he could never be more to her than a friend, and when she was alone she broke down and cried like a little child.
“Oh, Kenneth! if it could be, but it never can. I had thought he might be dead, and that some time I should know, but he is alive; he is Kitty’s husband and baby’s father, and they must never know, and it can never be. But I will tell you.”
Drying her tears, she began a letter which would tell Kenneth why she was leaving.
“Dear Kenneth,” she began, “I have found out something and must go away before your cousin comes. Kitty showed me his photograph, and he is the man who stands between you and me. He is my husband.”
Something like the sharp cut of a knife pierced her heart as she wrote the words and looked at them with a desire to tear them from the paper.
“I can’t tell you about it,” she went on. “It is too dreadful to recall. I will only say he bade me good-by the night we were married, and I have never seen him since. He called himself Harold Meurice, and that is why I have never identified him with your cousin. My aunt did not like him and must not know who he really is. No one but you must know, for Kitty’s sake and the baby’s. Oh, Kenneth! It cannot be wicked to tell you, as I say good-by forever, that I love you; but don’t try to see me; it can do no good. I must live my life alone. Don’t tell him that you know. Oh, Kenneth, Kenneth! Good-by.
“Connie.”
A great tear fell on the word “Connie” and blotted it, but she could not rewrite the note, and, folding it, she directed it to Kenneth, and taking it to his room placed it where he would see it at once. There was not much time to lose if she would take the three o’clock train, and she accepted Kitty’s offer to help her pack, while Mrs. Stannard, half distraught with the suddenness of Connie’s going, kept wondering why she need take everything, if she were coming back. And Connie could not talk, for the swelling in her throat and the tears she was trying to keep down. She was very white, and there was a drawn look about her mouth and an expression in her eyes which troubled Kitty, and when everything was done and they were waiting for the carriage which was to take Connie to the station, she put her arm caressingly around her neck and said:
“Is it some trouble, Connie, and can I help you?”