Artemis, feeling that her small world had suddenly fallen into a black abyss, sat still and silent for a long time; then, with an effort, she stirred herself and went about her work.
She dared not speak, for perhaps a single word would betray her. Her secret would lie between her and her husband for ever, separating them wider as the years passed, until, perhaps, they became strangers, even enemies.
Ten days later Jason died in bed whilst Artemis was away at her work. In a prolonged fit of coughing he broke a blood-vessel, and passed away with his mind full of dark suspicions regarding his wife.
Artemis, worn out with anxiety, her mind poisoned, her spirit broken, felt no shock at his death. She was already numb with suffering: she could feel no more.
She buried him without tears, and a few days later left her lodgings and took a single room in one of those ill-famed streets that lead down to the quay. To her mother’s invitation to make a home with her she replied that for the present she preferred to be alone with her grief.
Throwing herself into her work with a feverish anxiety to forget, she passed a few days, successfully keeping at bay the suspicion—now almost a certainty—that she was even now only in the midst of her calamities. Even if she could forget, her sorrows were not yet over.
One restless night, when sleep was impossible, her spirit threw off its numbness, and for the first time for many weeks she looked facts in the face, and, speaking aloud, said:
“I am with child, and the father of the child is Onias.”
At the end of November the Varda winds came. Artemis never ventured out of doors except to go to and from her work and to buy the simple necessaries of life. Since her husband’s death she had not visited the café. She had, however, written to Onias, thanking him for his generosity, and telling him of the death of Jason. At the same time she asked him not to send her any more money, as she no longer needed it.
During these months her mind had been full of evasions and duplicities. To think was to suffer; to look into the future was to be filled with anxiety. If, as so often happened, thoughts of Jason came to her, she thrust them from her.