When he had packed his many-labeled steamer-trunk—brooding absently over a half-obliterated label bearing the word "Turin," a word that conjured up strange memories for him—he stowed away the last of what belongings he cared to take with him in his larger box, inwardly rejoicing that he was carrying away nothing of hers, or nothing that should remind him of her, and the life of which she stood the center. He was forcing down the lid of his trunk when the sharp, metallic click of a key in the door-lock startled him into sudden uprightness.
The door opened slowly, timorously, and Cordelia stood before him, with her hand on the knob.
She looked at him in silence, studying his impassive face with pleading, unwavering eyes, seeming to drink in every detail of feature and expression, searching for something she had, perhaps, half-hoped to find there, startled, too, at the change in him.
"John," she said, in a whisper, taking a step toward him. He looked at her, unrelaxed, without moving.
"John," she whispered once more, pitifully, creeping a step or two closer to him, and stopping again.
She was dressed all in black, and wore a heavy black-plumed hat that framed the white oval of her face; it was a face that looked tired and wan and touched with the twilight of lost happiness. In her hand she carried a great cluster of lilies of the valley. Their sickly, heavy, penetrating fragrance surrounded her and floated in with her, until Hartley himself could smell it. For all the rest of her days the odor of lilies of the valley was hateful to her.
She stood there for a moment, still hesitating, and then turned and closed the door, which had remained open behind her.
"You—you are not going away?" she gasped.
He was glad, inwardly, that it was all definitely settled, that no mischance could now turn him back, that even his own hand could no longer bar his outward way.
"I'm going to England to-morrow," he said, impassively. He stooped and turned the key in his steamer-trunk with a movement of determined conclusiveness that did not escape her.