He gave a brief, scoffing laugh. "Well, if you must know, I am," he said. "I was young, and a fool, and I got carried away. I am still a red-hot socialist, but I don't believe in dynamite as I used to do. I find the belief has not a pretty effect upon men's characters."
The admission was a visible relief to his companion. "I am glad," she said.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, suddenly leaning forward. "Is the pain getting at all less?"
"Yes," she returned, "it is less. It hurts a great deal, but I am beginning to feel as if I might be only badly bruised. I did not fall far, and I broke my fall with my arms, somehow." She showed two livid bruises, caked with dried blood, under her sleeves.
"Before we leave here," said Felix, "I wish you would try to tell me a little more. I mean," he broke off in great embarrassment, "perhaps you are not going to tell me anything, nor to trust me. There is nobody in the world who either likes or trusts me, and if you don't either, I shall not be surprised. But if you feel that you could trust me, I would like to help you if I can."
"I don't see how you are to help me," she replied in a hopeless kind of way. "My uncle brought me to London. At least, he says he is my uncle. I have been brought up at a convent school in the north of England. I never saw or heard from any relative until a month ago. I was always there, terms and holidays too, except once or twice when a girl asked me to her home for a few days. You see, I am as lonely as you!"
"Yes," said Felix, "I have a step-brother, but he hates me."
"Well," continued Rona, "about a month ago the Mother Superior told me my uncle had written to say he was coming to fetch me away. He wanted to see me, to judge what I was best fitted for, as I should have to earn my own living. I was rather pleased, for I had always been so lonely. You don't know what it is like to live in a school where letters come, and presents, and parcels, for everybody but you; and visitors and holidays for everybody but you. I had not even known that I had an uncle. But the Mother Superior said it was all right; the letter came from the firm of solicitors who had always paid my school bills. So he came, and I was sent for, and the very first moment I saw him I knew he was all wrong. I knew I should hate him. I could see the Reverend Mother was miserable too. She did not like to let him take me away. But of course she had to. She could not prevent it."
She broke off, as at some recollection which turned her sick. She shuddered.
Felix had had a bowl of porridge and an egg. He was now able to give her his undivided attention.