"Yes, I know!" murmured Cordelia, impassively, yet with a quailing heart, struggling to hide the tremor of dull fear that was shaking her. She saw that she must act with decision.
"I wonder," she went on, evenly, "if Mr. Hartley explained to you my intention of occupying these rooms once more—until the lease runs out, at any rate?"
"He simply sent word that he would come for his things to-morrow, and that you would take possession of the furniture later."
"Yes, of course! But I should like to put things in order, at once." She turned to go, but looked back, toying nervously with the keys.
"You say Mr. Hartley comes for his trunks to-morrow?"
"Yes, Miss Vaughan, to-morrow afternoon."
Hartley hesitated before the familiar door, as he slipped his pass-key into the lock. He knew that it would be for the last time, that once more the continuity of life was to be rudely snapped. His thoughts went back to another day, wearily, when he had closed the door on those same rooms and hurried away careless, hopeful, light-hearted. He thought, too, as he stood there, with what different feelings, at different times, he had passed in and out of those same apartments.
Within, he expected everything to be dust and neglect and disorder. To his surprise there was no sign of this; the very empty quietness of the rooms seemed still touched with an unknown presence. Everything had been put carefully to rights, the furniture and rugs were spotless, the curtains were looped back airily, clusters of freshly cut flowers stood on his desk and on his mantelpiece.
He looked about him, and sighed heavily, pacing the rooms impatiently for a bitter minute or two. Then, with an effort, he pulled himself together, and fell to hurriedly packing his trunks. A sudden new-born fever to get away from the place swept over him; he had made a grievous mistake in ever coming back; he was reaping his own reward of corroding memories. No, no, he told himself, he had no wish to see her again. She was like the dead to him; she belonged to the ghost-like past. He had no resentment against her now; he felt no hatred for her. All that he seemed to feel was a dubious pain, dull and faint and far-away, a pain for all those days he had blotted out and cut off from his actual life—as men are said to feel an ache in a limb that has been amputated.