Her weeping became quieter. “Tell her,” she articulated, “I never want to see her again.”
“But,” he said petulantly, “haven’t I just told you I never want to meet her?”
“Then write—write—I don’t mind Henrietta.”
“No!” he almost shouted, “not Henrietta either!”
She turned to him a face ravaged with tears and misery. “Why not Henrietta?” she whispered.
“I hate the lot of them,” he muttered. “They’re all witches.”
She laughed joyously. “That’s what I’ve said myself!” She gave him both her thin, hot hands to hold. “But it’s worth while, all this, if you are going to be good to me.”
He kissed her then as the sinner kisses the saint who has wrought a miracle of salvation for him. “We’ve had bad luck,” he murmured. “You’ve had the worst of it.” He stroked her cheek. “Poor little thing.”
Once out of sight of the two standing in the lane, Rose rode home quickly. She felt she had a great deal to do, but she did not know what it was. Her head was hot with the turmoil of her thoughts. There was no order in them; the past was mixed with the present, the done with the undone: she was assailed by the awful conviction that right was prolific in producing wrong. If she had not preserved her own physical integrity, these two, who were almost like her children—yes, that was how she felt towards them—would not have been tempted to such folly. For it was folly: they did not love each other, and she remembered, with a sickening pang, the expression with which Francis had looked at her. She told herself he loved her still; he had never loved anybody else and she had only pity and protection and a deep-rooted fondness to give him in return. She cared more passionately for Henrietta, who was now the victim of the superficial chastity on which Rose had insisted.
If she had known that Henrietta was to suffer, she would have subdued her niceness, for if Francis had been in physical possession of her body, she would have had no difficulty in possessing his mind. Holding nothing back, she could also have held him securely. She did not want him, but Henrietta would have been saved. But then Rose had not known: how could she? And Henrietta might be saved yet, she must be saved. The obvious method was to lay siege to the facile heart of Francis, but there was no time for that. Rose was not deceived by Henrietta’s enigmatic words. They were tired of meeting stealthily, she had said. What did that mean? Her head grew hotter. She had to force herself into calm, and the old man at the toll-house on the bridge received her visual greeting as she passed, but, as she went slowly to the stables, there was added to her anxiety the thrilling knowledge that at last, and for the first time, she was going to take definite action. Her whole life had been a long and dull preparation for this day. She began to take a pleasure in her excitement: she had something to do; she was delivered from the monotony of thought.