"
While Gyp was putting on hat and furs, she thought: "I shan't take a
bag; I can always make shift at Bury Street if--" She did not finish
the thought, but the blood came up in her cheeks. "Take care of Ossy,
darling!" She ran down, caught up the letter, and hastened away to the
station. In the train, her cheeks still burned. Might not this first
visit to his chambers be like her old first visit to the little house
in Chelsea? She took the letter out. How she hated that large, scrawly
writing for all the thoughts and fears it had given her these past
months! If that girl knew how much anxiety and suffering she had caused,
would she stop writing, stop seeing him? And Gyp tried to conjure up her
face, that face seen only for a minute, and the sound of that clipped,
clear voice but once heard--the face and voice of one accustomed to have
her own way. No! It would only make her go on all the more. Fair game,
against a woman with no claim--but that of love. Thank heaven she had
not taken him away from any woman--unless--that girl perhaps thought she
had! Ah! Why, in all these years, had she never got to know his secrets,
so that she might fight against what threatened her? But would she have
fought? To fight for love was degrading, horrible! And yet--if one did
not? She got up and stood at the window of her empty carriage. There was
the river--and there--yes, the very backwater where he had begged her to
come to him for good.
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