She was free. There was no one and nothing to hinder her. She could go back, and put these sad events and her remorse and her great mistake away from her remembrance. She argued that one had not to suffer all through one’s life for a mistake. She had not meant to be cruel to poor Robert, but she ought never to have come at all. And now she was free to go, and once at home again these months would seem to her as a time of which she had dreamed during an uneasy night.
But no sense of gladness or thankfulness came over her. She sat there, and bit her lips.
Home? What did she want with home?
She rose and went into the living-room, carelessly throwing her letters and papers on the table. The bank bill fell down, and she stooped and picked it up, and her fingers moved as though they were being impelled to tear it in shreds.
But she tossed it whole on to the table. She struck a match to light the lamp, but changed her mind and let the darkness creep on unrelieved.
Ben Overleigh rode up half an hour afterwards, and found her thus.
“I have come to tell you that the strike is over, and the train service begins to-morrow,” he said.
“I have heard,” she said rigidly.
“You must be glad to hear the news,” he said. “This time of waiting must have been very trying for you.”
She did not answer.