Page:Dark Hester.djvu/297

whoever it was?—There may be truth in that.—Some truth.—But no!’ — He clenched his hand and laid his arm across his eyes. ‘No! If it had been anybody but that man! If I could only understand that it could be that man! And even that—for the past—I could have swallowed. She was so young. He was so—practised,’ Clive groaned. ‘But that she should tell me, throw it in my teeth at last, that she loves him still and will always love him!—No. Even to keep Hester I can’t pretend that I accept it.’

Monica now felt herself gazing at a necessity that lay before her. She had seen it in an ominous glimpse before, when she had paled and recoiled from it; but it lay there, clearly visible now, in the path of her approach to Clive and Hester’s lives, and over the heavy throbbing of her heart she steadied her voice to speak, understanding, at last, what it had all meant as she had not done till this moment came upon her. One did not understand, ever, till afterwards.

‘I wonder if it will help you to accept what Hester gives you to bear if I tell you something about myself, Clive,’ she said. He lay still, rigidly still, his arm before his eyes. ‘You think that Captain Ingpen would not have been my friend if I had