The Immortal Moment Part 43

He drew out a chair for her, and removed his own to the other side of the table, keeping that barrier between them. In his whole manner there was a terrible constraint.

"You've eaten nothing," he said.

Neither had he, she gathered, nor Jane. The trouble she had brought on them was jarring, dislocating, like the shock of bereavement. They had behaved as if in the presence of the beloved dead.

And yet, though he held himself apart, she knew that he had not sent for her to cast her off; that he was yet bound to her by the mysterious, infrangible tie; that he seemed to himself, in some way, her partner and accomplice.

Their silence was a link that bound them, and she broke it.

"Well," she said, "you have something to say to me?"

"Yes"--his hands, spread out on the table between them, trembled--"I have, only it seems so little----"

"Does it? Well, of course, there isn't much to be said."

"Not much. There aren't any words. Only, I don't want you to think that I don't realise what you've done. It was magnificent."

He answered her look of stupefied inquiry.

"Your courage, Kitty, in telling me the truth."

"Oh, _that_. Don't let's talk about it."

"I am not going to talk about it. But I want you to understand that what you told me has made no difference in my--in my feeling for you."

"It must."

"It hasn't. And it never will. And I want to know what we're going to do next."

"Next?" she repeated.

"Yes, next. _Now._"

"I'm going away. There's nothing else left for me to do."

"And I, Kitty? Do you think I'm going to let you go, without----"

She stopped him.

"You can't help yourself."

"What? You think I'm brute enough to take everything you've given me, and to--to let you go like this?"

His hands moved as if they would have taken hers and held them. Then he drew back.

"There's one thing I can't do for you, Kitty. I can't marry you, because it wouldn't be fair to my children."

"I know, Robert, I know."

"I know you know. I told you nothing would ever make any difference. If it weren't for them I'd ask you to marry me to-morrow. I'm only giving you up as you're giving me up, because of them. But if I can't marry you, I want you to let me make things a little less hard for you."

"How?"

"Well, for one thing, I don't believe you've anything to live on."

"What makes you think that?"

"Marston told me that if you married you forfeited your income. I suppose that meant that you had nothing of your own."

"It did."

"You've nothing?"

"My father would give me fifty pounds a year if I kept straight. But he can't afford it. It means that my little sisters go without dresses."

"And you've no home, Kitty?"

She shook her head.

"They can't have me at home, you see."

He sighed.

"If I looked after you, Kitty, do you think you would keep straight? If I made a home for you, somewhere, where you won't be too unhappy?"

"You mean you'd take care of me?"

"Yes. As far as I can."

Her face flushed deeply.

"No," she said. "No. I mustn't let you do that."

"Why not? It's nothing, Kitty. It's the least that I can do. And you'd be very lonely."

"I would. I would be miserable--in between."

"Between?"

"When you weren't there."

"Kitty, dear child, I can't be there."

She shrank back, the flush died out of her face and left it white.

"I see. You didn't mean that I was to live with you?"

"Poor child--no."