"No? Mother told me. She did not mean to be cruel, but she was not well herself then, and she—she reproached me."
She rose suddenly to her feet, the same still, white look on her face that had come there when she had read Sinclair's letter. She turned on her friend with an almost fierce movement.
"Why don't you hate me?" she said, with only half-repressed vehemence. "Why does not every one—as I do myself?"
She was beyond the comfort of her friend now. Jenny Davis could only watch her with wide eyes of wonder and agony. For a moment the girl paced the room with restless, dragging step, like a wild caged thing.
"Jenny, I will tell you something now. You may laugh at me—laugh as—I can—as I do myself, but——" Again she paused, and she put her hand to her throat as though the words choked her.
"After I read that—that letter, it seemed as if something broke in me—not my heart—no, don't think that; but at first I felt desolate, with a loneliness you could never comprehend. He had been in my mind so many years then. Yes, I know—I had expected it all—but it was a shock at first. I never could face anything painful all my life, and when I actually knew the truth—when I read his letter, and it was cruel, after all, Jenny, I wanted to go away somewhere and hide myself—no—I wanted to go to some one—some one who really loved me, and cry my heart out. Don't you understand me, Jenny? Oh, you must——" her voice was dragging painfully now. "I wanted—to—go—to Orito!"
"Cleo!"
"Yes, it is true," she went on, wildly. "He was better than the other. So much tenderer and truer—the best man I ever knew—the only person in the whole world who ever really loved me. And I—Jenny, I killed him! Think of it, and pity me—no, don't pity me—I deserve none. And then—and then——" she was beginning to lose command of her speech now. Mrs. Davis tried to draw her into a chair, but she put the clinging, loving hands from her and continued: "When I wanted him—when that other had deserted me—had let me know the truth that he never did care for me—never did care for me," she repeated, incoherently, "and I loved him all those years. I used to lie awake at night and cry for him,—for Orito—for his comfort—just as I do now. I cannot help myself. I thought I would go to him and tell him everything—he would understand—how—how my heart had awakened—how I must have loved him all along. And then—then mother burst out at me only last week, Jenny, and told me the truth—that—that he was dead—that he had killed himself; no—that I had killed him. Do you wonder I did not die—go mad when I learned the truth? Oh, Jenny, I am half dead—I am so numb, dead to all pleasure, all hope in life."
She had been speaking spasmodically; at first with a hard, metallic ring to her voice, and then wildly and passionately. Now her voice suddenly trembled and melted. She was still quite weak, and had excited herself. Her friend caught her to her breast just in time for the flood of tears to come—tears that were a necessary, blessed relief. She broke down utterly and began to sob in a pitiful, hopeless, heart-breaking fashion.
From that day, however, she seemed to improve, though she was erratic and moody. She would insist on seeing all the callers—those who came because of their genuine liking for her, and sorrow in her illness, and the larger number who came out of curiosity. However much of her heart she had shown to Mrs. Davis, no one else of all Cleo's friends guessed the turmoil that battled in her breast.