“Wait—please,” came from her abruptly.
Another long silence. Then I: “If she comes here, I think the only person who can properly receive her is you.”
“No—you must see her,” said Anita at last. And she turned round in her chair until she was facing me. Her expression—I can not describe it. I can only say that it gave me a sense of impending calamity.
“I'd rather not—much rather not,” said I.
“I particularly wish you to see her,” she replied, and she turned back to her writing. I saw her pen poised as if she were about to begin; but she did not begin—and I felt that she would not. With my mind shadowed with vague dread, I left that mysterious stillness, and went back to the library.
It was not long before Mrs. Langdon was announced. There are some women to whom a haggard look is becoming; she is one of them. She was much thinner than when I last saw her; instead of her former restless, petulant, suspicious expression, she now looked tragically sad. “May I trouble you to close the door?” said she, when the servant had withdrawn.
I closed the door.
“I've come,” she began, without seating herself, “to make you as unhappy, I fear, as I am. I've hesitated long before coming. But I am desperate. The one hope I have left is that you and I between us may be able to—to—that you and I may be able to help each other.”
I waited.
“I suppose there are people,” she went on, “who have never known what it was to—really to care for some one else. They would despise me for clinging to a man after he has shown me that—that his love has ceased.”