"As if I had anything to forgive.… You'll never speak to me again, if I tell you. And if I don't tell you … If I don't tell you, I could never look you in the eyes."
Barbara stared at the fire, and for a moment it seemed as though she were again making confession at the judgement-seat of God.
"I met Jack two years ago," she began hurriedly. "He'd been saying things that hurt me, so I arranged to stay with the Pentyres when he was there and I made him fall in love with me. One night at Ross House he asked me to marry him. I … I don't defend myself; I'd never dreamed of marrying him. Even then it wouldn't have been so bad, if I'd told him the truth, if I'd admitted that I'd led him on to punish him. Instead … I looked for some excuse which would save my face; I said 'But you aren't a Catholic, are you?' I never saw him again till my cousin Jim Loring's ball just before the war.…"
At the memory of their meeting Barbara shuddered until she could not speak. There had been no hint of warning; she was in the drawing-room after dinner when Lady Knightrider's car arrived from Raglan, and Jack put his head in at the door to ask if he might have supper with her.
"I asked him what he'd been doing with himself all the summer," Barbara went on with a spurt. "He said, 'I've just been received into your Church.'"
She paused and stared in terror round the room as though it were changing under her eyes into the haunted banqueting-hall of Loring Castle.
"I couldn't speak.… The music stopped, I heard people clapping, it went on again. Then there were voices on the stairs, and Jack asked me again to marry him. I said I couldn't. He wanted to know why. Then … then I had to tell him I wasn't in love with him. Then he saw everything."
Barbara looked up quickly, with her hand to her forehead as though to ward off a blow. It was then that Jack stared at her, through her, into her soul; and his eyes had followed her ever since. At first she braced herself to meet his attack, but it was not the occasion for conventional recriminations. If a man's soul could be imperilled, she had handed Jack's over to damnation. God … Hell … Immortal souls.… She had not believed in them till that moment, but there was always that eerie hundredth chance that they existed.
Eerie.…
Her attention was captured by the word and wandered away in search of a missing line.