She took my hands in both her own, speaking with quiet dignity. “I had to tell you. Perhaps I too have been selfish, but I couldn’t let you misunderstand me any longer. I’ve seen you watching for me, and I’ve had to go by you without looking. We never had any secrets, you and I; you must have wondered why I let my husband make me cut you--I’ve been wicked--I couldn’t trust myself. When I heard that you’d gone to Sheba, I didn’t care what happened. I’d always hoped and hoped that you might come to love me. But it seemed I wasn’t wanted, so I just took---- He’s been good to me, but it isn’t like living with the person you love best, is it? You mustn’t hate him any more; to love a woman who can’t love you back again makes even success empty--and he’s been used to take love without asking.” We sat very still. We saw Hetty come out into the garden and walk down the path as though she were looking for us. We waited to hear her call, but she re-entered the house, leaving the silence unruffled. “I’ve made a pretty fair mess of things, haven’t I? There was Vi first, and now there’s you. I’m a pretty fair blighter.” She pressed herself against me to stop me. “Oh, you mustn’t say that. It hurts. You mustn’t say it.” “But I am. Even your husband knows it.” “Some day you’ll marry and everything’ll come right.” “For Vi, if we have the luck to come together. But what about you? What about even Halloway?” She avoided answering my self-accusations by attracting attention to herself. “From the first he didn’t want me to know you; he gave excuses, and I understood. Because I couldn’t give him love, I gave him everything else that he wanted. But now--now that I’m going to be a mother, I had to tell you. I want it to be a boy, Dannie. Waiting for him, I’ve thought so much of old days. I felt that if you didn’t know, somehow, things wouldn’t go right--because when he comes I want him to be like you.” She had risen, letting go my hand. “I had always thought of you as my sister,” I faltered. “I know--and you were a dear brother. It was just my foolishness to want you to be something else.” For a moment she clung to me, hiding her face against my shoulder. Then we passed down the stairs, afraid to be alone any longer. “Goin’?” Hetty inquired. “You won’t tell the master, will yer?” She glanced toward the study-door as though he were behind it and might have overheard. At the end of the lane the carriage was standing. In the presence of the coachman Ruthita’s tones were conventional. “You’re going westwards? Where can I drop you?” In the carriage I asked her whether her husband would know of what we had done. “I shall tell him.” “Don’t you think he might be willing to let us be friends?” “I’ll ask him,” she said, “but----” At Hyde Park Corner the carriage pulled up and I alighted. I watched her eager face looking back at me, growing smaller and smaller.