Two days later she had to call at the solicitor’s office to sign the deed of release. Incidentally she learnt that Hubert was leaving England the same evening.
Had she been at home, these days would have been spent in solitude. For the first time she suffered in Stella’s company. All allusion to Hubert was avoided between them. Sometimes she could hardly play her part; sickness of the soul wasted her.
It was morning; he was now on the Continent, perhaps already talking with someone he loved.
She was ashamed to have so deceived herself; she had feared him, because she believed he loved her, and that by sympathy he might see into her heart. Had it been so, he could not have gone from her in this way. Forgetting her own pride, her own power of dissimulation, she did not believe it possible for him so to disguise tenderness. She would listen to no argument of hope, but crushed her heart with perverse cruelty.
The annual payment of money had been a link between him and her; when she signed the deed releasing him, the cold sweat stood on her forehead.
She would reason. Of what excellence was he possessed that her life should so abandon itself at his feet? In what had he proved himself generous or capable of the virtues that subdue? Such reasoning led to self-mockery. She was no longer the girl who questioned her heart as to the significance of the vows required in the marriage service; in looking back upon those struggles she could have wept for pity. Love would submit to no analysis; it was of her life; as easy to account for the power of thought. Her soul was bare to her and all its needs. There was no refuge in ascetic resolve, in the self-deceit of spiritual enthusiasm. She could say to herself: You are free to love him; then love and be satisfied. Could she, when a-hungered, look on food, and bid her hunger be appeased by the act of sight?
Thus long she had held up, but despair was closing in upon her, and an anguish worse than death. She must leave this house and go where she might surrender herself to misery. There was no friend whose comfort could be other than torment and bitter vanity; such woe as hers only time and weariness could aid.
She was rising with the firm purpose of taking leave of Stella when a servant came to her door, announcing that Mr. Eldon desired to see her.
She was incredulous, required the servant to repeat the name. Mr. Eldon was in the drawing-room and desired to see her.
There must have been some error, some oversight in the legal business. Oh, it was inhuman to torture her in this way! Careless of what her countenance might indicate, she hastened to the drawing-room. She could feign no longer. Let him think what he would, so that he spoke briefly and released her.