I sprang up. "Dan, your solemn promise!" At that moment I hated to be thrust aside for Polly Morrison. "You were not compelled to marry me. You—you did love me then—a little."
He laughed scornfully. "You have just hit it—a little. A man sometimes takes second best, more fool he! You might have done if Polly with all her witchery had not crossed my path. Or it might have been some one else. There is no need of making a fuss now. I have not wasted any of your patrimony. You can hand it all over to John Gaynor if you like, and you and your father can maunder on through life. And I shall have a glowing, thrilling, absorbing atmosphere, in which one really lives. No, don't come near me—"
The bed had stood between us as I sat by the window. Perhaps I had unconsciously stepped forward. I had a wild idea that I must plead, that I must exert all my wifely powers to keep him from committing this dreadful sin.
"Don't come near me," he continued. "We will say good-by with this space between us and no tomfoolery. Perhaps I was idiotic to come and tell you this, but I wanted you to know how the other woman was loved, how a man loves when a woman fills every thought of his soul. There—you and your father are well rid of me!"
He picked up his valise and strode out of the room, down the stairs. I dropped on the bed. I did not faint or cry. I could hardly be any more deserted than I had been the last two months. A deserted wife! A husband by all of God's sacred ordinances who gloried in his shameful love for another woman!
It stunned me. One moment it seemed incredible, then his voice sounded clear and vibrant, as if he was still in the room. Had we parted for all time? A hundred little tendernesses rushed over me. The laughing, teasing eyes that could hold so much meaning looked into mine. Oh, he must have loved me once and I had tried to love him, yes, sometimes I really had, but it was a child's love.
"Ain't any one comin' to dinner, Mis' Hayne?" A peremptory voice rang up the stairway.
I rose, bathed my face, although there were no tears to wash away, and went down.
"Mr. Hayne gone away?" inquired Jolette.
"Yes," I answered briefly.