Even they had ceased, and for
four months she had heard no word. He had "got over" her, it seemed,
wherever he was--Russia, Sweden--who knew--who cared?
She let the brush rest on her knee, thinking again of that walk with
her baby through empty, silent streets, in the early misty morning last
October, of waiting dead-tired outside here, on the pavement, ringing
till they let her in. Often, since, she had wondered how fear could have
worked her up to that weird departure. She only knew that it had not
been unnatural at the time. Her father and Aunt Rosamund had wanted
her to try for a divorce, and no doubt they had been right. But her
instincts had refused, still refused to let everyone know her secrets
and sufferings--still refused the hollow pretence involved, that she had
loved him when she never had. No, it had been her fault for marrying him
without love--
"Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds!"
What irony--giving her that to read--if her fellow traveller had only
known!
She got up from before the mirror, and stood looking round her room,
the room she had always slept in as a girl. So he had remembered her
all this time! It had not seemed like meeting a stranger. They were not
strangers now, anyway. And, suddenly, on the wall before her, she saw
his face; or, if not, what was so like that she gave a little gasp.
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