She stood motionless for a few moments, then went up-stairs. As she crossed the hall she saw that the front-door was open, but she was too listless to close it. She went to her boudoir and sank into a chair. In the next room was a bottle of potassium cyanide which she had brought up from the butler’s pantry. It had been purchased to scour John Suydam’s silver, which had the rust of generations on it. She would get it in a few moments. She had a fancy to review her life before she ended it. All those years before the last two—had they ever really existed? Had there been a time when life had been before her? when circumstances had not combined to push her steadily to her destruction? No temptations had come to the plain, unattractive girl in the little Brooklyn flat. Though every desire had been ungratified, still her life had been unspoiled, and she had possessed a realm in which she had found perfect joy. Was it possible that she and that girl were the same? She was twenty years older and her life was over; that girl’s had not then begun. If she could be back in that past for a few moments! If, for a little time, she could blot out the present before she went into the future! She lifted her head. In a drawer of her wardrobe was an old brown-serge dress. She had kept it to look at occasionally, and with it assure, and reassure, herself that the present was not a dream. She had a fancy to look for a moment as she had looked in those days when all things were yet to be.
She went into her bedroom and took out the dress. It was worn at the seams and dowdy of cut. She put it on. She dipped her hair into a basin of water, wrung it out, and twisted it in a tight knot at the back of her head, leaving her forehead bare. Then she went back to the boudoir and looked at herself in the glass. Yes, she was almost the same. The gown did not meet, but it hung about her in clumsy folds; the water made her hair lifeless and dull; and her skin was gray. Only her eyes were not those of a girl who had never looked upon the realities of life. Yes, she could easily be ugly again; but with ugliness would not come two years’ annihilation.
She threw herself into a chair, and, covering her eyes with her hand, cried a little. To the hopes, the ambitions, the dreams, the longings, which had been her faithful companions throughout her life, she owed those tears. She would shed none for her mistakes. She dropped her hand and let her head fall back with a little sigh of content. At least there was one solution for all misery, and nothing could take it from her. Death was so easy to find; it dwelt in a little bottle in the next room. In an hour she would be beyond the reach of memories. What mattered this little hour of pain? There was an eternity of forgetfulness beyond. Another hour, and she would be like a bubble that had burst on the surface of a lake. Then an ugly thought flashed into her brain, and she pressed her hands against her eyes. Suppose there were a spiritual existence and she should meet Cryder in it! Suppose he were waiting for her at the threshold, and with malignant glee should link her to him for all eternity! His egoism would demand just such revenge for her failure to love him!
She sprang to her feet. With difficulty she kept from screaming aloud. Was she mad?
Then the fear left her eyes and her face relaxed. If the soul were immortal, and if each soul had its mate, hers was Quintard, and Cryder could not claim her. She felt a sudden fierce desire to meet Cryder again and pour out upon him the scorn and hatred which for the moment forced love from her heart.
She dropped her hands to her sides and gazed at the floor for a while, forgetting Cryder. Then she walked toward her bedroom. As she reached the pillars she stopped and pressed her handkerchief to her mouth with a shudder of distaste. Cyanide of potassium was bitter, she had heard. She had always hated bitter things—quinine and camphor and barks; her mother used to give her a horrible tea when she was a child. * * * The taste seemed to come into her mouth and warp it. * * *
She flung her handkerchief to the floor with an impatient gesture and went into the next room.
A moment later she raised her head and listened. Then she drew a long, shuddering breath. Some one was springing up the stairs.
She thrust her hands into her hair and ruffled it about her face; it was half dry, and the gold glinted through the damp.
Quintard threw open the door of the boudoir and was at her side in an instant. His face was white and his lips were blue, but the fierceness was gone from his eyes.