“Here’s a letter,” he said casually.
When he saw her face, however, he was no longer casual. She had grown very pale. She looked at the letter with the oddest expression.
“Oh!” she said, with a gasp.
“What’s the matter?” he asked anxiously. “Please tell me, Mildred!”
She recovered herself, and even managed a constrained smile.
“It’s from Will,” she said. “Excuse me, please, while I read it.”
In great agitation, Dacier walked up and down the room.
“Did she write it herself?” he thought. “It can’t be from him! Good Lord, if he did come back, she’d marry him, whatever he was, just out of sheer pig-headedness! Nothing would count with her, in comparison with her infernal pride. All she wants is to show people—who don’t care a straw—that she hasn’t been jilted. She deserves to be jilted! She’s heartless! She’s inhuman! She doesn’t care—”
When she reëntered the room, every trace of anger and resentment left him. In her face, still pale, but very composed now, he saw plain and clear, her secret anguish and her terrible stubbornness. She was going to send him away, at any cost to herself or to him. She was going to drive away love and keep cold pride alone in her heart.
“Will’s coming back,” she said quietly.