She went up to her boudoir, fighting at every step the impulse within her to take the first train for the Northwest. As a bar to her leaving the house, she rang for her maid and put on a négligée robe and slippers, and lying down among the pillows of a luxurious sofa, drawn up to the fire, shut her eyes and tried to sleep. It was in vain. Before her came the vision of her husband, "mortally ill," as Colegrove had said. She had never seen Roger March ill in her life, but she had a prophetic vision of how he looked, pale and grey, with a gentle stoicism, a stern patience, and he was alone in an adobe hut among the far-off hills of the Northwest. If she went to him he would no doubt repulse her. She repeated this to herself resolutely, and in the act of repeating it rose and dressed herself, without the assistance of her maid, in a travelling dress, and put a few things in a travelling case. Two voices, each trying to drown the other, shrieked within her, the one representing the madness of going to Roger March, and the other dragging her against her will. She rang for her carriage and then, sitting at her desk, wrote a few lines to her father:
"I have heard that my husband is fatally ill. I am going to him, although I lose most of what I have by it."
She rang for a footman, gave him the note, and directed him not to give it to General Talbott unless she should not return in time for dinner. The footman, wondering, carried the travelling bag down and put it in the carriage. Alicia, as all human beings do when leaving their habitat for the last time, walked through the rooms which, up to that time, had been hers. They were exquisite in their beauty, luxury and comfort. In her bedroom she looked about her, saying to herself:
"What madness is mine to jeopardise all of this, or rather to sacrifice it! I remember so well how he looked when he told me that if I ever attempted to see him I would sacrifice everything but a bare living, and he is a man of his word."
But even as these thoughts went through her mind her feet bore her unwillingly towards the door. As she entered her boudoir she came face to face with Colegrove.
"Don't blame the flunkey," he said; "he tried to stop me, but I walked past him, and he knew perfectly well that if he had laid a finger on me I would knock him down. I saw your carriage at the door with luggage on it. Where are you going?"
"To my husband," replied Alicia in a low voice.
Alicia had expected a strong protest, even that Colegrove would seek to restrain her, but, on the contrary, he looked at her with a smile in his keen eyes and said, as if answering a question:
"Yes, I have nothing to say against your going. If Roger March is living you will lose every penny you have except a paltry thousand or so a year; then what I can offer you will probably bring you to my arms. Men who don't know me think I am greedy for money. So I am, but only to buy with it things more precious than money. But I would be glad to see you sacrifice all the money that Roger March gave you if it would bring you to me with nothing but the clothes on your back."
Alicia had listened to him at first with a preoccupied air, but when his meaning dawned upon her she turned towards him with a look which implied that gratitude and respect for a man which every woman feels when he is ready to sacrifice money for love.