She did not tell her that ten minutes ago she, too, had been out on the Cliff-side and had had a battle with herself there, and had won it. For little Jane there couldn't be a harder thing in the world than to give Robert up. Of course she had to do it, so there could be no virtue in that. The hard thing was to do it gracefully, beautifully. "What are you going to say to me, Janey? He told you?" "Yes; he told me." "Oh, don't look at me like that, dear. Say if you hate it for him." "I don't hate it. Only, oh, Kitty, dear, do you really love him?" "Yes; I love him." "But--you've only known him ten days. I don't think I could love a man I'd only known ten days." "It makes no difference." "That's what Robert said." "Yes; he said it to me. Ah, I know what you mean. You think it's all very well for him, because men are different. It's me you can't understand; you think I must be horrid." "Oh no, no. It's only--I think _I'm_ different, that's all." "_Is_ that all, Janey?" "Yes." "And will you love me a little if I love him a great deal? Or do you hate me for loving him?" "Kitty--you needn't be afraid. The more you love him the more I shall love you." "Did--did his wife love him? Oh, ought I to have asked you that?" Jane shook her head. "I'm not sure that I ought to tell you." "She didn't, then?" "Oh yes, she did, poor little thing. She loved him all she could." "And it wasn't enough?" "No, I don't think it was, quite. There was something wanting. But I don't think Robert ever knew it." "He knows it now," said Kitty. Her voice lifted with the pride of passion. CHAPTER XV Marston cancelled that appointment at Whitehall. Somebody else's business would have to wait another day, that was all. He was wont to settle affairs as they arose, methodically, punctually, in the order of their importance. At the moment his own affair and Kitty's was of supreme importance. Until it was settled he could not attend to anybody else. He was determined not to let her go. He meant to have her. He did not yet know precisely how he was to achieve this end, but as a first step to it he engaged a room indefinitely at the Métropole. There was nothing like being on the spot. He would consider himself defeated when Lucy had actually married her. Meanwhile, he was uplifted by his supreme distrust of the event. His rival had made a very favourable impression on him, with the curious effect of heightening Kitty's value in his eyes. Other causes contributed, her passion for Lucy, and the subtle purification it had wrought in her (a charm to which Marston was by no means unsusceptible), the very fact that his own dominion was uncertain and his possession incomplete.