"Oh!" Kate once more slowly sighed, but with a vagueness that made him pursue.
"One can see now that she was living by will—which was very much what you originally told me of her."
"I remember. That was it."
"Well then her will, at a given moment, broke down, and the collapse was determined by that fellow's dastardly stroke. He told her, the scoundrel, that you and I are secretly engaged."
Kate gave a quick glare. "But he doesn't know it!"
"That doesn't matter. She did by the time he had left her. Besides," Densher added, "he does know it. When," he continued, "did you last see him?"
But she was lost now in the picture before her. " That was what made her worse?"
He watched her take it in—it so added to her sombre beauty. Then he spoke as Mrs. Stringham had spoken. "She turned her f
