Kitty nodded.
"Ah, then," she said—"then he couldn't have suffered—could he? I'm glad."
She let the Dean put her in a chair, and, clasping her hands round her knees, she seemed to pursue her own thoughts.
Her aspect affected him almost beyond bearing. Ashe's brilliant wife?—London's spoiled child?—this withered, tragic little creature, of whom it was impossible to believe that, in years, she was not yet twenty-four? So bewildered in mind, so broken in nerve was she, that it was not till he had sat with her some time, now entering perforce into the cloud of horror that brooded over her, now striving to drag her from it, that she asked him about his visit to England.
He told her in a faltering voice.
She received it very quietly, even with a little, queer, twisting laugh.
"I thought he wouldn't. Was Lady Tranmore there?"
The Dean replied that Lady Tranmore had been there.
"Ah, then, of course there was no chance," said Kitty. "When one is as good as that, one never forgives."
She looked up quickly. "Did William say he forgave me?"