Yours,
Denis.
That was how he vindicated her! So he believed what other people told him! He wanted her to go where his mother could watch her! This was his faith, his pride, his love! This was her triumph!
VIII
“I’ll give him just one more day,” Emily declared in a tremulous voice. “Then I’ll go home!”
She knew, even while she spoke, the pitiable folly of her words. One more day, when she had long ago given Denis all the days she ever could live! And to talk of going home, when she had no home in all the wide world!
Her father’s house wasn’t her home now. If she went there, she would be a visitor, welcomed and beloved, but always a visitor. She didn’t belong there any more. The words of the old proverb came into her mind—“Home is where the heart is.” Once upon a time she had thought that a fanciful idea, but now she knew it to be true; and her heart, alas, was wandering homeless.
She had written Denis a very prompt reply to his letter. She had told him that his people had treated her shamefully, that she was done with them, and that he must take his choice. “Either them or me,” she had said. “Please let me know when you have made up your mind.”
She hadn’t thought that he would take so long about making up his mind, or that her just anger would prove so feeble a flame. It was anger that had warmed and strengthened her, anger that was her justification; and it was flickering dimly now,[Pg 168] leaving her defenseless against the cold wind of doubt and bitter regret.
If only she had had patience, if only she had waited until Denis came back! They could have talked it over together; but instead of that, she had forced upon him a decision that would inevitably cause him untold pain.
It was cruel! He couldn’t choose between her and his venerated people; and he couldn’t compromise—he was too downright for that. He would take what she said seriously. Well, suppose he didn’t choose her?