After a brief delay, she came to the bedroom door.
"Run down to the King's Road and get me a cab," he said to her at the door, as it were confidentially.
"Yes, sir." The woman was like a Christian slave.
"Here! Take the portmanteau down with you to the front door." He gave her the portmanteau.
"Yes, sir."
She disappeared; and then there was the noise of the front door opening.
George picked up his hat and abruptly left the room. Hilda moved to and fro nervously, stiff with having stood still so long. She wondered how he, and how she, would comport themselves in the ordeal of adieu. In a few moments a cab drove up--Louisa had probably encountered it on the way. Hilda waited, tense. Then she heard the cab driving off again. She rushed aghast to the window. She saw the roof of the disappearing cab, and the unwieldy portmanteau on it.... He had gone! He had gone without saying good-bye! That was his device for simplifying the situation. It was drastic, but it was magnificent. He had gone out of the house and out of her life. As she gazed at the dim swaying roof of the cab, magically the roof was taken off, and she could see the ravaged and stricken figure within, sitting grimly in the dark between the wheels that rolled him away from her. The vision was intolerable. She moved aside and wept passionately. How could he help doing all he had done? She had possessed him--the memories of his embrace told her how utterly! All that he had said was true; and this being so, who could blame his conduct? He had only risked and lost.
Sarah Gailey suddenly appeared in the room, and shut the door like a conspirator.
"Then--" she began, terror-struck.
And Hilda nodded, ceasing to cry.