His eyes were wandering about the room. “It will kill him. If his heart can break, it will break it,” he said.
“He has lived after a heavier blow than that, Philip. Do you think he is not suffering? For all his bright ways and hopeful talk and the letters and the presents, do you think he is not suffering?”
He liberated his hands, and began to tramp the room as before, but with head down dud hands linked behind him.
“It will be cruel to deceive him,” he said.
“No, Philip, but kind. Death is not cruel. The wound it makes will heal. It won't bleed for ever. Once he thinks I am dead he will weep a little perhaps, and then “—she was stifling a sob—“then it will be all over. 'Poor girl,' he will say, 'she was much to blame. I loved her once, and never did her any wrong. But she is gone, and she was the mother of little Katherine—let us forget her faults'——”
He had not heard her; he was standing before the window looking down. “You are right, Kate, I think you must be right.”
“I'm sure I am.”
“He will suffer, but he will get over it.”
“Yes, indeed. And you, Philip—he will torture you no longer. No more letters, no more presents, no more messages——”
“I'll do it—I'll do it to-morrow,” he said.