"Am called back to England—something wrong about our railway. Very sorry I can't come and say good-bye. I shall run back if I can, but I'm afraid I may be kept in England. Will you write?
"W. R. R."
She read it, and stood as if changed to stone. "Something wrong about our railway!" Surely an all-sufficient reason; the writer had no doubt of that. He might be kept in England; that meant he would be, and the writer seemed to see nothing strange in the fact that he could be. She did not doubt the truth of what the note said. A man lying would have piled Pelion on Ossa, reason on reason, excuse on excuse, protestation on protestation. Besides Willie Ruston did not lie. It was just the truth, the all-sufficient truth. There was something wrong with the railway, so he left her. He would lose a day if he missed the boat, so he left her without a word of farewell. The railway must not suffer for his taking holiday; her suffering was all his holiday should make.
Slowly she tore the note into the smallest of fragments, and the fragments fell at her feet. And his passionate words were still in her ears, his kisses still burnt on her cheek. This was the man whom to sway had been her darling ambition, whom to love was her great sin, whom to know, as in this moment she seemed to know him, her bitter punishment. In her heart she cried to heaven, "Enough, enough!"
The note was his—his to its last line, its last word, its last silence. The man stood there, self-epitomised, callous and careless, unmerciful, unbending, unturning; vowed to his quest, recking of naught else. But—she clung to this, the last plank in her shipwreck—great—one of the few for whom the general must make stepping-stones. She thought she had been one of the few; that torn note told her error. Still, she had held out her hands to ruin for no common clay's sake. But it was too hard—too hard—too hard.
"Will you write?" Was he tender there? Her bitterness would not grant him even that. He did not want her to slip away. The smallest addition will make the greatest realm greater, and its loss sully the king's majesty. So she must write, as she must think and dream—and remember.
Perhaps he might choose to come again—some day—and she was to be ready!
She went downstairs. In the hall she met her children, and they said something to her; they talked and chattered to her, and, with the surface of her mind, she understood; and she listened and answered and smiled. And all that they had said and she had said went away; and she found them gone, and herself alone. Then she passed to the sitting-room, where was Marjory Valentine, breathless from mounting the path too quickly; and at sight of Marjory's face, she said,
"I've heard from Mr. Ruston. He has been called away," forestalling Marjory's trembling words.
Then she sat down, and there was a long silence. She was conscious of Marjory there, but the girl did not speak, and presently the impression of her, which was very faint, faded altogether away, and Maggie Dennison seemed to herself alone again—thinking, dreaming, and remembering, as she must now think, dream, and remember—remembering the day that was gone, thinking of what this day should have been.
She sat for an hour, still and idle, looking out across the sea, and Marjory sat motionless behind, gazing at her with despair in her eyes. At last the girl could bear it no longer. It was unnatural, unearthly, to sit there like that; it was as though, by an impossibility, a dead soul were clothed with a living breathing body. Marjory rose and came close, and called,