Chapter VII: Confidences

When Mollie went to bed that night, she found her sister seated by the fire. Her cheeks were deeply flushed, and traces of tears were plainly visible round her pretty eyes. When she saw Mollie, she turned her head petulantly aside. Mollie, in some astonishment, went up to her.

"Why are you not in bed, Kit?" she asked.

Mollie's matter-of-fact, almost indifferent words were as the proverbial last straw to the excited girl. She sprang to her feet, flung her arms to her sides, and confronted her sister, her brown eyes flashing, her cheeks on fire.

"You ask me that!" she said--"you! Why did you ever come back? If you meant to devote your life to nursing, why did you not stay with your patients? Why did you come back now of all times to--to destroy my hopes? Oh, I am the most wretched girl in the world!"

"What do you mean, Kitty?" said Mollie, in astonishment. "I do not understand you. Have you lost your senses?"

"My heart is broken," answered Kitty; and now all her fortitude gave way, and she sobbed as though she would weep away her life.

Mollie was very much startled. She thought she knew Kitty, but she did not understand this strange mood. She went on her knees, put her arms round the younger girl, and tried, at first in vain, to comfort her.

"You must save me!" cried Kitty presently, and her voice rose to a high hysterical note. "I shall die if you don't."

"But what am I to save you from, Kitty? And die, my darling! What extraordinary, intemperate words!"

"Oh, what do I care for my words? I am too wretched, too miserable! Don't you know what is going to happen?"

"No; what? Do speak."

"Gavon is going away, perhaps to be killed. He--is going to South Africa on Saturday week."

"Then, Kitty," replied Mollie, "are all these tears--is all this awful misery--on account of Gavon?"

Kitty struggled out of her sister's embrace.

"And why shouldn't it be?" she asked. "Have I not loved him for years? Oh, I don't mind saying it. Did I ever care for any other man? I could have married long ago, but I would not. I never cared for any one but Gavon all my days. All my hopes were centred on him, and he--O Mollie, yes, it is true--he did like me until you came."

Mollie felt a crimson flood rush to her face; she also felt a choking sensation round her heart. So this was the secret of Kitty's misery! She was silent for a moment, too absolutely astonished to speak. Then she said in a voice which was stern for her,--

"Dry your tears. Sit down, please. We must talk this matter out."

But Kitty's only response was a fresh burst of weeping.

"She is hysterical; I can do nothing with her until she gets over this attack," thought Mollie. She pushed her sister towards a chair, and said gravely, "If you will not listen to me now, we will defer our conversation. I am going to bed."

She went to the other side of the room, and began immediately to undress. For a time Kitty kept on sobbing, her face buried in her arms, which she had flung across the back of the chair. But presently, seeing that Mollie took not the slightest notice of her, she said in a semi-whisper,--

"I will be good, Mollie. I know I am horribly naughty, but I will be good now. I will listen to you."

"I am glad you are getting back your senses," replied Mollie; "but, Kitty, you must prepare for a scolding."

"Oh, I will be very good," answered Kitty again. "Scold me if you like. Do anything except keep silence; do anything except look so awfully, awfully indifferent."

"Indifferent!" cried Mollie; "how very little you know! But, Kate, my dear, I am ashamed of you. Your want of self-control distresses me. I don't know much about love and lovers, but I do know that, in our mother's day at least, no girl would talk as you have done to-night; no girl would wear her heart on her sleeve; no girl in the old days would declare her love for a man who had not spoken to her of his."

"And what do I care for the old-fashioned girl?" said Kitty. "I am modern, and I have modern ways. I do love Gavon, and I don't mind saying so. And, Mollie, I swear that he did love me before you came."

"Is this true?" said Mollie, in an altered voice. "Tell me everything."

"Yes, it is true. The moment he saw you there came a change over him." Here Kitty looked full up at her sister. "And you love him too, I believe," she said suddenly.

"No, Kitty," answered Mollie; "that is a remark I cannot permit you to make. If Gavon is your lover, he can be less than nothing to me. Now, please, do not conceal anything from me."

Thus adjured, Kitty spoke.

"I am terribly unhappy in every way," she said. "It is not only that for a long time I have hoped to become Gavon's wife, but I have got--yes, it is true, Mollie--I have got desperately and hopelessly into debt. I owe Madame Dupuys a large sum of money. Madame Dupuys knows that when I am of age I shall have quite a nice little fortune of my own, and until lately she seemed quite willing to wait to be paid when it was convenient to me; but of late she has pressed and pressed me. I have not been really frightened, for I thought the very moment Gavon asked me to marry him Aunt Louisa would be so pleased that she would help me to satisfy madame's requirements. But if Gavon doesn't ask me--and now, oh, now I begin to think that he never, never will!--I shall not know what to do. I shall be not only a miserable, forsaken girl, but I shall be disgraced."

"Nonsense, Kitty. It is very wrong indeed to go into debt, and for my part I do not understand any girl going into debt for mere finery."

"Oh, you are so grand and above us all," interrupted Kitty. "You don't understand the failings, the weaknesses, the longings of poor girls like myself."

"In some ways I am glad I don't," answered Mollie. "But there, we need not discuss my feelings in the matter. The thing is to know how to get you out of your present scrape. As to your sensations with regard to Captain Keith I have nothing to say, for I cannot understand your want of reticence in the matter. But the other thing ought to be attended to. You must allow me to tell Aunt Louisa, if you are afraid to do so."

"No, no, Mollie--no, no," answered Kitty; "that would quite destroy my last hope. Auntie has a perfect horror of girls who go into debt, and so has Gavon; I have heard him say so. I heard him say once that even if he loved a girl, and he found that she was frivolous, and extravagant, and ran into debt, he would never, never marry her. And that made me finally make up my mind that under no circumstances was he to know. You must not tell Aunt Louisa. I will get out of it some way, somehow, but you must not tell her."

"It is a very puzzling story. I scarcely know what to do," answered Mollie.

Kitty's eyes had now grown bright. She had ceased to weep so bitterly.

"After all," she said, "if you will only help me, things may come right. I shan't go into debt after this week, and I will try to make some kind of arrangement with madame. I have great hopes that on Monday night Gavon may ask me to marry him."

"Why on Monday night, Kitty?"

"Oh, I am going to Lady Marsden's fancy ball at Goring, and Gavon is to be there; and the beautiful dress I ordered from Madame Dupuys is to be worn on that occasion. I am to go as the Silver Queen. I think Gavon will like me in that dress, and--anyhow it is my last chance. If he proposes to me, all will be well. I shall be engaged--as happy as the day is long; and I don't mind Aunt Louisa knowing then--I don't mind anything then. And there's one way in which it can be done, and one way only."

"What is that?" asked Mollie.

"You, Mollie, my darling, must go away. You must not see Gavon. O Mollie, won't you, won't you help me? I want you to keep right away. I want you to go somewhere just until after Monday. Give me Monday night for my last chance."

"Suppose it fails?" said Mollie, almost in a whisper.

"Then," answered Kitty, with a shiver, "I will try hard to be good. I will take up my poor, broken failure of a life and make the best of it. But please, please give me my last chance. If he says nothing on Monday night, I shall have no hope. Please go away, Mollie, for the next three days."

"I could do so," answered Mollie. "I wonder if it is right. This is Thursday evening. I have a great friend, Nurse Garston, who is also a Red Cross Sister. She has often asked me to visit her in her home in the north of London."

"Then go, Mollie; do, Mollie darling, go!"

"I would do so if it were really the best thing for you."

"It is the only thing."

"But would you marry Gavon, Kitty, if you knew that he did not love you?"

"But he does."

"If you knew that he did not love you just in the extreme way in which a man ought to love the woman he is about to make his wife?"

"I don't care--yes, I would marry him. I would _make_ him love me utterly, completely, if only I were his wife."

Once again Kitty flung herself into her sister's arms, and once again her tears flowed. Mollie was silent for a moment, standing very upright, allowing the young, slight figure to rest against her with all its weight. An imperceptible shudder went through her frame--she was seeing a picture. She saw in Gavon Keith's eyes an expression which no woman ever yet saw and mistook. A secret was whispered in her ear; her heart gave one throb of inexpressible joy, and then went down, down, as though it were sinking out of sight. The next instant her brave young arms were flung around Kitty.

"Come, Kitty," she said, "you are giving way to nonsense, and are hysterical. I will put you to bed. and you must fall asleep."