“I can but die,” she thought; “I could not live without him—I will die, and then he will know I loved him to the end.”
She rose and tottered to her feet. She felt a great bodily weakness as though every nerve were unstrung. The restorative the doctor had left was standing on the table, and she drank some of this, and it seemed to give her strength. Her hat was lying near her, and she put it on and tried to walk feebly across the room. She had no plans, but somehow she thought of the river gliding through the great city, and hiding dark sin and sorrow beneath its murky flood.
“It would hide me,” she murmured; “hide my shame forever.”
She opened the room door and went out on the corridor, and then walked feebly down the broad staircase. No one stopped her or interfered with her, and in a few moments she reached the hall. One of the servants here came forward and asked her if she required a cab. But she shook her head, and went down the steps into the lighted streets, alone with her broken heart.
CHAPTER XXXII.
DESPAIR.
The noise and glare outside almost overwhelmed May as she went tottering feebly on. She knew not which way to turn, and felt that her weary feet would not bear her much farther. She stopped and looked half-dazed around. And as she did so a lamplight fell on her white and haggard face, showing it plainly to a man who was just about to pass her when she paused. This was Ralph Webster, but he did not recognize her. This pale-faced, miserable looking woman, whose features somehow reminded him of the beautiful, blooming girl he had seen last night at his aunt’s house, however, interested him. He, too, stopped after he had passed her, and looked back. She was beckoning for a cab, and a moment later one drew up.
The driver bent forward and asked her where she wished to go. The woman Webster was watching hesitated, got slowly into the cab, and then he heard her voice. He started; it was the voice of May, and the words she uttered sounded strange and ominous to his ears.