He meant far more than he had hinted in his bitter speech; this afternoon he had intended to tell her his resolution; this was his last visit to the little house; from to-morrow afternoon he would be an acquaintance to whom she bowed in the streets, whom she met now and then by chance. He might tell her that now—now while she held his hands between hers. And if he told her that and convinced her of it, she would not go to meet Jack Fenning. He sat silent as she looked up in his eyes. His struggle was short; it lacked the dramatic presentment of Ora's mental conflicts, it had no heroic poses; but there emerged again clearly from the fight the old feeling that to use her love and his power in this fashion would not be playing fair; he must let her have her chance with her husband.
"I was a brute, Ora," he said. "I'll do just what you like, dear."
With a bound she was back to merriment and her sanguine view of favourable possibilities in Mr. Fenning. She built more and more on these last, growing excited as she pictured how recent years might, nay must, have improved him, how the faults of youth might, indeed would, have fallen away, and how the true man should be revealed. "And if he wants a friend, you'll always be one to him," she ended. Ashley, surrendering at discretion, promised to be a friend to Jack Fenning.
The next day found her in the same temper. She was eager and high-strung, merry and full of laughs, thoughtfully kind, and again thoughtlessly most cruel. When he called for her in the morning she was ready, waiting for him; from her air they might have been starting again for a day in the country by themselves, going to sit again in the meadow by the river, going to dine again in the inn parlour whose window opened on the sweet old garden. No such reminiscences, so sharp in pain for him, seemed to rise in her or to mar her triumph. For triumphant she was; her great purpose was being carried out; renunciation accomplished, reformation on the point of beginning. Prosperously the play had run up to its last great scene; soon must the wondering applause of friends fall on her ear; soon would Alice Muddock own that her virtue had been too cruel, and Babba Flint confess his worldly sagacity at fault. To herself now she was a heroine, and she rejoiced in her achievements with the innocent vanity of a child who displays her accomplishments to friendly eyes. How much she had suffered, how much forgone, how much resisted! Now she was to reap her reward.
Their train was late; if the boat had made a good passage it would be in before them; the passengers who had friends to meet them would be in waiting. They might find Jack Fenning on the platform as their engine steamed into the station. They had talked over this half way through the journey, and Ora seemed rather pleased at the prospect; Ashley took advantage of her happy mood to point out that it would be better for him to leave her alone with Jack; he would get a plate of cold meat somewhere, and go back to town by himself later on. She acquiesced reluctantly but without much resistance. "We can tell you about our journey afterwards," she said. Then had come more rosy pictures of the future. At last they were finished. There was a few minutes' silence. Ashley looked out of the window and then at his watch.
"We ought to be there in ten minutes," he said.
Her eyes grew wide; her hands dropped in her lap; she looked at him.
"In ten minutes, Ashley?" she said in a low voice. It had come at last, the thing, not pictures, not imaginings of the thing. "Ten minutes?" she whispered.
He could hardly speak to her. As her unnatural excitement, so his unnatural calm fell away; he lost composure and was not master of his voice. He took her hands and said, "Good-bye, my dear, good-bye. I'm going to lose you now, Ora."
"Ashley, Ashley!" she cried.