‘It might have been better,’ she told herself, ‘if Letty had run away with another man!’
That would have been enough to hurt any man’s pride, but to prefer a primitive native island to the security of being Mrs. Maximus Kirby was something it would be very hard to explain.
‘How can I tell him?’ she asked herself.
Because Dorinda felt so weak she forced herself to send for food and eat at least a few mouthfuls of the delicious dishes that were brought to her bedside.
When the tray had been taken away, she had lain staring into the darkness, feeling as if Letty’s and Sister Teresa's letters were whirling round and round in her mind, repeating themselves over and over again.
She wondered now how it could ever have seemed possible to her father and to herself that Letty should marry a man
