The crimson flush faded and left her white, but still she did not flinch. "I have thought of that," she said, steadily, "and I have decided that it should not—make any difference. I don't believe the marriage would be legal—but that's neither here nor there. I don't want a divorce, I don't want the thing known, I don't consider that we were ever married. I don't think such a marriage as ours, which we both entered into without the slightest thought, which we have repented of"—
"Speak for yourself," he interposed.
"Which I have repented of, then," she went on, "ought to be binding. The clergyman who married us is dead; the witnesses, so old that they are childish, probably remember nothing about it. There is no one now living who remembers, except you and I. And for me I have determined to think of it as a dream, and I want you to promise me to do the same."
"But—there is the notice in the parish register." He was staring at her blankly, admiring in spite of himself, the calm resolution of her manner, the business-like precision with which she was unfolding her arguments, as if she had rehearsed them many times to herself.
"I have thought of that, too," she said, in answer to his last objection, "and I don't think it in the least likely that any one will ever see it. Why should they, without any clue? At all events, this is—the only way out." She faltered as her mind wandered for a moment unwillingly to another way which she had now despaired of—too easy a solution to her difficulties ever to come true. What a fool she had been to think that he would die! People like that never die. As she saw him now, in the full pride of his health and good looks, it seemed impossible to believe that any misfortune could assail him—least of all death! ...
"There is—no other way," she repeated, with a little, involuntary sob. "The risks are not great—but, at any rate, I must take them. Now, there is only one other thing"—She paused for a moment and then drew out of her purse a plain gold ring, and showed it to him. It was the ring which she had once worn on her finger for a few minutes, which she had kept carefully hidden ever since. She glanced about her; there was no one in sight except the policeman, who in the distance near the carriage-drive, was pacing up and down at his cold post and beating his hands to keep them warm. Elizabeth rose and went to the edge of the lake. With well-directed aim, she threw the tiny circlet of gold so that it struck the fast-vanishing surface of water and quickly disappeared. She drew a long sigh of relief. "There," she said, "that is over."
Paul watched her curiously. He saw that she attached to this little action a mysterious significance. He sneered harshly. "Very pretty and theatrical," he said. "But do you really think that by a thing like that—throwing away a ring—you can dissolve a marriage?"
She turned to him, her white face still resolute and intensely solemn. "I don't know," she said, quietly, "but I wanted to throw it away before you, so that you would understand that everything is over between us, and that day at Cranston is as if it never had been. Never had been, you understand," she repeated, with eager emphasis. "I want you to promise to think of it like that."
He shrugged his shoulders. "How we either of us think of it, I suppose, doesn't make much difference so far as the legality of the thing goes," he said. "But,—have your own way. If you choose to commit a crime, it's not my affair."
"A crime!" She started and stared at him. "Do you call that a crime?"