Mrs. Presty went on: “There is no wish, on my part, to pain you by any needless allusion to my claims as a father. My one desire is to enter into an arrangement which shall be as just toward you, as it is toward me. I propose that Kitty shall live with her father one half of the year, and shall return to her mother’s care for the other half If there is any valid objection to this, I confess I fail to see it.”
Mrs. Linley could remain silent no longer.
“Does he see no difference,” she broke out, “between his position and mine? What consolation—in God’s name, what consolation is left to me for the rest of my life but my child? And he threatens to separate us for six months in every year! And he takes credit to himself for an act of exalted justice on his part! Is there no such thing as shame in the hearts of men?”
Under ordinary circumstances, her mother would have tried to calm her. But Mrs. Presty had turned to the next page of the letter, at the moment when her daughter spoke.
What she found written, on that other side, produced a startling effect on her. She crumpled the letter up in her hand, and threw it into the fireplace. It fell under the grate instead of into the grate. With amazing activity for a woman of her age, she ran across the room to burn it. Younger and quicker, Mrs. Linley got to the fireplace first, and seized the letter. “There is something more!” she exclaimed. “And you are afraid of my knowing what it is.”
“Don’t read it!” Mrs. Presty called out.
There was but one sentence left to read: “If your maternal anxiety suggests any misgiving, let me add that a woman’s loving care will watch over our little girl while she is under my roof. You will remember how fond Miss Westerfield was of Kitty, and you will believe me when I tell you that she is as truly devoted to the child as ever.”
“I tried to prevent you from reading it,” said Mrs. Presty.
Mrs. Linley looked at her mother with a strange unnatural smile.
“I wouldn’t have missed this for anything!” she said. “The cruelest of all separations is proposed to me—and I am expected to submit to it, because my husband’s mistress is fond of my child!” She threw the letter from her with a frantic gesture of contempt and burst into a fit of hysterical laughter.