“If she had told you that she had been married to Charlie Somers that morning; that he was starting for India next day; that whatever her duty to her father and yourself might have been (that’s nonsense; a girl has no duty to her sister), her duty to her husband came first then. If she had told you that at the last moment, Katherine, what would you have done?”
Katherine felt every possibility of reply taken from her. What could she have done? Supposing Stella that night--that night in the moonlight, which somehow seemed mixed up with everything--had whispered _that_ in her ear, instead of the lie about wishing to bid Charlie farewell. What could she have done; what would she have done? With a gasp in her throat she looked helplessly at her questioner. She had no answer to make.
“Then how could you blame me?” cried Lady Jane, throwing off her wonderful furs, loosening her mantle, beginning, with her dress tucked up a little in front, to look more like herself. “What was to be done when they had gone and taken it into their own hands? You can’t separate husband and wife, though, Heaven knows, there are a great many that would be too thankful if you could. But there they were--married. What was to be done? I made sure when you would insist on driving home with her, Katherine, that she must have told you.”
“I was not expected, then, to drive home with her?” Katherine said sharply. “It was intended that I should know nothing--nothing at all.”
“I thought--I sincerely thought,” said Lady Jane, hanging her head a little, “that she would have told you then. I suppose she was angry at the delay.”
Katherine’s heart was very sore. She had been the one who knew nothing, from whom everything had been kept. It had been intended that she should be left at the ball while Stella stole off with her bridegroom; and her affectionate anxiety about Stella’s headache had been a bore, the greatest bore, losing so much time and delaying the escape. And shut up there with her sister, her closest friend, her inseparable companion of so many years, there had not been even a whisper of the great thing which had happened, which now stood between them and cut them apart for ever. Katherine, in her life of the secondary person, the always inferior, had learned unconsciously a great deal of self-repression; but it taxed all her powers to receive this blow full on her breast and make no sign. Her lips quivered a little; she clasped her hands tightly together; and a hot and heavy moisture, which made everything awry and changed, stood in her eyes.