"He told me of your illness and reminded me that if I tried to see you I would lose everything, but I scarcely heard what he was saying. I could not keep away. He overtook me on the journey yesterday morning and wished to make me promise if I found you dead that I would marry him--he is divorced. I felt such rage against him--" She stopped and raised her hands and clenched them with a gesture which implied a hatred of Colegrove greater than any words could convey. "I never was worthy of you, but perhaps if it had not been for Nicholas Colegrove I should not have wrecked and ruined you as I have done, so it is only just that I should be wrecked and ruined, too." Then she came nearer to him and suddenly burst into sobs and, clasping her hands, cried: "Let me stay--let me stay, if only for this one night. It is so cold outside, and I know not where to go. I never wronged you with Nicholas Colegrove except about money. Let me stay! Would you drive me out like a houseless dog?"
She had not yet ventured near enough to her husband to touch him. March put his thin hands over his face, his features were convulsed, but he said no word. Then Alicia, laying her hand on the arm of his chair, cried:
"You haven't told me to go away. You can't do it. I will go after a while, when you are well, but even if you send me away I sha'n't go very far, and something will always drag me back to you."
March remained silent. The wind outside steadily rose and howled wolfishly around the little house. An ilex-tree, which overhung the roof, was beating fiercely upon it, and its strong branches tore at the little house like the claws of a wild beast seeking to destroy it.
No, he could not turn her out like a houseless dog!
Then Alicia, kneeling by his chair, begged and prayed him to let her stay. March remained silent as much from weakness as from the tumult in his soul. The wind grew fiercer and the night wilder. At last Alicia's hand timidly sought her husband's.
"If you tell me to go, I will go," she whispered between her sobs, but he could not tell her to go.
* * * * *
A year later, on a beautiful spring afternoon, Sir Percy and Lady Carlyon were walking together through the park at Washington. Never had Lady Carlyon appeared brighter or lovelier. Health, happiness and beauty radiated from her sparkling face and beautiful dark eyes, and her graceful step and airy movements were in themselves exhilarating. Sir Percy, too, looked like a man whose heart was at rest as he walked by his wife's side through the woods in which the mystery of the spring was unfolding.
"It is just a year," said Lady Carlyon, turning to her husband, "since you got that strange letter from Mrs. March. Remember it was not I but you who gave up the fight. Oh, how much braver are women than men!"