"You have come. You have tried. You have failed," she went on after a long pause. And in spite of her efforts, that deep voice of hers was gentle and wonderfully sweet. "Now—you will return to your life, I to mine." And she moved toward the entrance to the drawing-room, I following her. We stood in silence at the front doorway waiting for my carriage to come up. I watched her—maddeningly mistress of herself.
"How can you be so cold!" I cried. "Don't you see, don't you feel, how I, who love you, suffer?"
Without a word she stretched out her beautiful, white hands, long and narrow and capable. In each of the upturned palms were four deep and bloody prints where her nails had been crushing into them.
Before I could lift my eyes to her face she was turning to rejoin her workmen. As I stood uncertain, dazed, she glanced at me with a bright smile. "Good-by again," she called. "A pleasant journey!"
"Thank you," I replied. "Good-by."
Driving toward the road gates, I looked at the house many times, from window to window, everywhere. Not a glimpse of her until I was almost at the road again. Then I saw her back—the graceful white dress, the knot of blue-black hair, the big white hat, and she directing her workmen with her closed white parasol.