The Three Sisters Part 81

"I can't," she said. "It's Molly. Poor little Molly."

"Don't talk to me of Molly. She lied about you."

"Whatever she did she couldn't help it."

"Whatever we do now we can't help it."

"We can. We're different. Oh--don't! Don't hold me like that. I can't bear it."

His arms tightened. His mouth found hers again as if he had not heard her.

She gave a faint cry that pierced him.

He looked at her. The lips he had kissed were a purplish white in her thin bloodless face. "I say, are you ill?"

She saw her advantage and took it.

"No. But I can't stand things very well. They make me ill. That's what I meant when I asked you to be careful."

Her helplessness stilled his pa.s.sion as it had roused it. He released her suddenly.

He took the thin arm surrendered to his gentleness, turned back her sleeve and felt the tense jerking pulse.

He saw what she had meant.

"Do you mind my sitting beside you if I keep quiet?"

She shook her head.

"Can you stand my talking about it?"

"Yes. If you don't touch me."

"I won't touch you. We've got to face the thing. It's making you ill."

"It isn't."

"What is, then?"

"Living with Papa."

He smiled through his agony. "That's only another name for it.

"It can't go on. Why shouldn't we be happy?

"Why shouldn't we?" he insisted. "It's not as if we hadn't tried."

"I--can't."

"You're afraid?"

"Oh, no, I'm not afraid. It's simply that I can't."

"You think it's a sin? It isn't. It's we who are sinned against.

"If you're afraid of deceiving Mary--I don't care if I do. She deceived me first. Besides we can't. She knows and she doesn't mind.

She can't suffer as you suffer. She can't feel as you feel. She can't care."

"She does care. She must have cared horribly or she wouldn't have done it."

"She didn't. Anybody would have done for her as well as me. I tell you I don't want to talk about Mary or to think about her."

"Then I must."

"No. You must think of me. You don't owe anything to Mary. It's me you're sinning against. You think a lot about sinning against Mary, but you think nothing about sinning against me."

"When did I ever sin against you?"

"Last year. When you went away. That was the beginning of it all. Why _did_ you go, Gwenda? You knew. We should have been all right if you hadn't."

"I went because of Ally. She had to be married. I thought--perhaps--if I wasn't there----"

"That I'd marry her? Good G.o.d! Ally! What on earth made you think I'd do that? I wouldn't have married her if there hadn't been another woman in the world."

"I couldn't be sure. But after what you said about her I had to give her a chance."

"What _did_ I say?"

"That she'd die or go mad if somebody didn't marry her."

"I never said that. I wouldn't be likely to."

"But you did, dear. You frightened me. So I went away to see if that would make it any better."

"Any better for whom?"

"For Ally."

"Oh--Ally. I see."

"I thought if it didn't--if you didn't marry her--I could come back again. And when I did come back you'd married Mary."

"And Mary knew that?"

"There's no good bothering about Mary now."