“Only tell me, before I die!” he entreated.
She looked up at him sorrowfully. And suddenly he clasped her in his arms, such a pitiful, desperate embrace! She clung to him, sobbing, strained him to her.
“Oh, I did, I did love you!” her heart cried. “When it was you. But not this ghost—this distortion of what was you!”
But she didn’t say it, didn’t say anything, she was too full of an aching and dreadful pity. Nothing on earth could save him; she saw death in his face; she knew that she was saying good-bye to him forever. He knew it, too. Ineffable moment! There were no words for it; they clung to each other, hopelessly, in an abandon of grief.
II
She persuaded him to go to a sanitarium she knew of; he didn’t want to, didn’t want to linger on, at her expense. But for her sake, for the sake of her anguish, he consented. He lived there nearly six months, writing to her now and then, stiff, stupid little notes. He died rather suddenly.
She never again mentioned him to a living soul; no one else knew what had happened to him. She let him die in peace, rest in peace. She went on just as usual; it was her pride to keep her pain to herself, to hide it absolutely. She never forgot him; really remained faithful to that pitiful wraith. She had duties, interests, even pleasures enough, she lived vigorously and fully. But that wound never healed. She was never again conscious of absolute content, or of real hope. She never regarded the future with eagerness. Her heart was not whole.
III
Mr. Petersen was becoming crushed by his disgrace. The amazing change of mistresses in his establishment had caused a tremendous scandal. He tried to go on as usual, but it was not possible. Many people shunned him, business fell off, the general atmosphere of respect in which his soul had flourished was poisoned, and unfit for his great lungs to breathe.
And, what is more, he worried very much about Frankie. The presence of this handsome young woman in his house, coincident with the disappearance of Minnie and Lionel, was a fact of ugly significance. He began very soon to see his course; he deliberated carefully, looked at it from her point of view as well as from his own, and came at last to the conclusion that it was a good plan.