His silence conveyed to her that he listened since she desired it, that he left it to her to tell him as much or as little as she would, and that thus he trusted her. "I was afraid," she said. "What? Afraid of _me_, Kitty?" "I thought it would make you not care for me." "I don't think anything you can tell me will make any difference." "You said yourself it would. You said you wouldn't marry me if I wasn't nice." He looked up impatient and surprised. "But we've been through all that," he said. "No, we haven't. When I said I wasn't nice I meant there were things I----" "Well?" "I--I wasn't married to Charley Tailleur." He took it in silence; and through the silence she let it sink in. "Where is the fellow?" he asked presently. "He's dead. I told you _that_." "I'd forgotten." There was another silence. "Did you care for him very much, Kitty?" "I don't know. Yes. No, I don't know. It wasn't the same thing." "Never mind. It's very good of you to tell me." "I didn't mean to." "What made you tell me?" "Seeing the children. I thought I could go on deceiving you; but when I saw them I knew I couldn't." "I see." His voice softened. "You told me because of them. I'm glad you told me." He paused on that. "Well," he said, "we must make the best of it." "That makes no difference?" "No. Not now." She sighed. "How long ago was it?" he asked. "Five years. Charley Tailleur was the first." "What?" "The first. There were others; ever so many others. I'm--that sort." "I don't believe you." "You've got to believe me. You can't marry me, and you've got to see why." She also paused. Her silences were terrible to him. "I thought you did see once. It didn't seem possible that you couldn't. Do you remember the first time I met you?" He remembered. "I thought you saw then. And afterward--don't you remember how you followed me out of the room--another night?" "Yes." "I thought you understood, and were too shy to say so. But you didn't. _Then_--do you remember how I waited for you at the end of the garden?--and how we sat out on the Cliff? I was trying then--the way I always try. I thought I'd make you--and you--you wouldn't see it. You only wanted to help me. You were so innocent and dear. That's what made me love you." "Oh," he groaned. "Don't." But she went on. "And do you remember how you found me--that night--out on the Cliff?" She drew back her voice softly. "I was sure then that you knew, and that when you asked me to come back with you----" "Look here, Kitty, I've had enough of it." "You haven't, for you're fond of me still. You are, aren't you?" "Oh, my God! how do I know?" "_I_ know. It's because you haven't taken it in. What do you think of this? You've known me ten days, and ten days before that I was with Wilfrid Marston." [Illustration: "'I want to make you loathe me ... never see me again.'"] He had taken it in at last. She had made it real to him, clothed it in flesh and blood.