“What am I to do?” she thought in terror. “What am I to do?”
It rained all day. Julia had brought no storm clothes. She prowled about the halls, getting what exercise she could, but dared not go downstairs. She sent for books from the library, but they might have been written in Greek. She summoned resolution to go to the dining-room at seven o’clock, but turned at the door, and ran back to her room. She saw Tay at every turn, and to sit alone at the table with his empty chair opposite, was beyond her endurance. Nor could she eat the food brought to her room. She went to bed again, and slept fitfully.
She awoke in the small hours to hear it still raining, and this time she fell into a fury over her demoralization.
“And this is love!” she thought. “Terrors! Ignominy! A will turned to water. I’d not be more helpless if I were in a hospital with typhoid fever.”
Her mind suddenly flew to the conversation with her friends on the night she had last dined with Ishbel. Should she go to Paris and rid herself of the disease once for all? What prospect of happiness if love were able to induce a misery keener than any of its compensations? If she could feel like this now, knowing that he loved her, and that the separation was but a matter of time, what might she not suffer if he ceased to love her, if he gave her cause for jealousy, if she found herself disappointed in him? It would be worse, far worse. Now, at least, she was—not free; no one ever felt more of a slave—but at least with the power to attain freedom. There would be a deep satisfaction, to say nothing of relief, in the knowledge that she never need think of him again—this man that had destroyed her fine poise, her remarkable powers, made her the slave of the race, the victim of the ancient instinct, a mere instrument upon which Nature was playing her old tune in contemptuous disregard of those years in which she had dwelt on impersonal heights seldom attained by young and beautiful women. She almost hated him. Better have done with it at once. In all her life with France she had never known depression like this, for love adds the sense of impotence to calamity.
She got out of bed, without ringing for her bath, and began to pack her trunk. She didn’t care if she never took a bath again. She hated herself, and she hated Tay. Above all she hated the rain.
But in the midst of her packing she sat back on the floor and scowled. To receive suggestions one must be perfectly amenable. There must be no reserve at the back of the head. Although she ground her teeth, she admitted that she would permit no man, no science, to destroy the image of Tay in her mind, root him out of her life. Nor would she confess herself a coward—nor violate the jealous instincts of her sex. If the time came when she must banish him, she would do it herself. Good God! She was female all through. Suffering was a part of her birthright. She would give up not the least of the accompaniments of love.
Cursing herself for a fool, she rang for her bath, dressed herself, and determined to walk out of doors, if the valley had turned into a lake.
But by the time she had swallowed her coffee and rolls the skies had cleared, and she started out with a guide and a sled. There was always excitement in tobogganing. For a bit the keen air revived her, but the hills and valley had new terrors, for every step reminded her of her lover. Black protest left her, but was followed by a sadness so profound that she feared to dissolve in the presence of her guide, and sent him home. She had planned to visit the lake, but she found that it would be as easy to break her word and follow Tay to London.
A new and horrid fear had begun to haunt her. Did he really love her as he had loved her before she had made him, for a few moments, at least, the plaything of her will and her science? He had forgiven her, but must not such a memory rankle, eventually induce a permanent resentment—fear—hatred possibly?