“Yes.... Outside....”
Celia pressed her drained face to her knees and beat the bedclothes with her hands.
“That’s the way I feel, too,” said Judith, with a dizzy movement of her hand across her forehead, “I want to scream aloud till I go mad.”
Celia was moaning into the covers.
“Stop, stop, you poor thing!” Judith’s breath caught in her throat, and her hand travelled tremblingly toward Celia’s shoulder, “Oh, I know—I know how you feel! Don’t.... Don’t!... you poor thing. I’ve been and done it, haven’t I.... There was no one—no one like him, nor ever will be again. A human flower, wasn’t he?... And why I should come here to the one I’ve hurt most and who must hate me worst, I don’t know.... I suppose it’s the way criminals give themselves up. Unless it’s because, as I’ve hated you so, and had good reason to, and you’ve known it, I felt you would understand better than the others. Then, you’ve got brains, you can tell me what to do. After driving those millions of miles with that poor angel like lead upon my arm, I haven’t an idea in my head beside ... I’m afraid to go to my father—” She shivered. “He’s been sick of my pranks for some time. You will stand by me, Celia Compton, just for the first?... I could have been devoted to you, if you had let me.... You know I was never anything but a soft-hearted fool—and now to have upon my soul the responsibility of this ghastliness....”
Celia had got up, and with the dainty carefulness forming part in her of that second nature which stands us in stead when the directing faculties are dazed, was fastening up her hair.
“First,” she said, “we shall have to call my brother. Then go to your father.”
At these words, which could be interpreted as a promise of assistance, Judith laid down her head, and let tears at last have their way with her. In floods, more and more uncontrolled they came. Celia stood over her, but even a racking compassion could not make her touch the heaving figure. “The fault was more mine than yours,” she said, with dry lips and inexpressive voice, like that of an oracle, or a sleeper speaking. “In the bottom of my heart I must have always known that the blame of our silly feud was with me. With a word I could have set everything right. What are you?... A leaf in your own passions. But I know what I am about, and do what I do deliberately.
“And with a heart just a little larger ... but now, as you say, between us, we’ve done it. But you need not blame yourself as much as me.... Come. You must go outside and remain with ... with him, while I explain to my brother. In a moment it will be sunrise.”
As Judith’s strength and command over her will seemed now to have forsaken her, Celia helped her to her feet and guided her out of the house. It was a shock, turning the corner, to find the carriage directly at hand, high upon the lawn. The pearl-grey carriage-rug lay massed upon the seat.