A little before she had thought herself the most miserable of beings. But however deep the hell, there is always a deeper one. Add uncertainty to distress and the sum of it is sorrow multiplied by the infinite. That hell, that sorrow was or seemed to be, hers. She did not know where to go, what to do, to whom to turn.
The pitiable plan of flight returned to her. Again she put it aside. She could not adopt it now. Besides, though she owed a duty to herself, she owed another to Verplank. In what manner he had failed to receive the letter, it was impossible for her to imagine, but the fact that he had not received it, hurt her doubly, hurt her for herself, hurt her for him. Had it reached him, both would have been spared this pass. But it had not reached him and since then what must he have thought of her? What!
The query, which kept repeating itself, tortured her and on that torture was superposed the precarious problem of his enlightenment. See him she could not. To write was beyond her ability. For there are things no pen should write as there are others no tongue should tell. None the less the truth she knew must reach him and would do so best, she thought, through some channel similar to that from which the letter had proceeded, from a source either indifferent or inimical to them both.
At the auto-suggestion, her thoughts fluttered, scattered, grouped, then suddenly regrouping, produced a name. Beneath her breath she uttered it.
“Barouffski!”
It was not in provision of this that she had married him. At the time no such possibility had even impossibly loomed. But she had married him precisely as she had obtained a divorce, in order to barricade the future from the past; in order also for the fleshpots which she craved—peace and security. She had not had much of either. None the less, the primary object which she had sought had, in its accomplishment, persisted. He was a barricade. He was her official and paid protector.
For the task therefore which she could not perform, he seemed naturally indicated. What alone gave her pause was the certainty that he would enjoy it. She could see him, see his ambiguous smile, see his green eyes aglow, his cruel and sensual mouth distended.
From the picture she turned. Beyond was a church, the frontal draped with black. The motor had stopped. It had reached the house in the rue de la Pompe and pending the opening of the doors, whirred as it blocked the sidewalk.
It was then that she turned. Beside her, arrested by the car, stood Verplank.
After walking up from Voisin’s with Silverstairs he had left him a moment earlier at Tempest’s.