Page:Frank Owen - The Actress.djvu/32

20 She did not resist; she did not seem to have sufficient strength.

"Oh, you don't understand," she moaned, "you don't understand."

Something in her tone made him draw back as though he had received a blow.

"Why, what do you mean?" he exclaimed breathlessly.

And then, although it tore her heart to do it, she told him the truth.

"I am an actress," she murmured helplessly. "I have been only acting all the time. But please don't misunderstand me," she continued quickly, as he made as though to interrupt. "I did not do it because I wanted to, but simply because I thought you would not live. In its bare simplicity, the fact seems brutal, and yet——"

She broke off abruptly. "Oh, I can't explain!" she sobbed brokenly. "But I couldn't go on this way forever."

Coningsby belonged to that class of men who are born to suffer in silence, the class who bear their troubles alone. With a visible effort he pulled himself together.

"Tell me," he said, and his voice sounded strangely hollow, "when did all this begin?"

"On the night of the Waddington's ball," she replied slowly. "I had slipped out onto the balcony after one of the dances, and there I met Jerold Wharton. He told me that you could not live, and that you were calling me to come. As I listened to his