CHAPTER XXVI
A RECKLESS JOURNEY
The rising moon hung low above the lofty pines behind the city, when Millicent sank shivering into a chair beside the window of her bedroom. Under the impact of the blow her teeth had gashed her upper lip, but she did not feel the pain as she sat with hands clenched, looking down on the blaze of silver that grew broader across the inlet. She was faint and dizzy, incapable as yet of definite thought; but confused memories flashed through her brain, one among them more clearly than the rest. Instead of land-locked water shimmering beneath the Western pines, she saw dim English beeches with the coppery disk of the rising moon behind, and she heard a tall man speak with stinging scorn to one who cowered before him among the shadows.
"I was mad that night, and have paid for the madness ever since. Now when it is too late I know what I have lost!" she gasped with a catch of the breath that was a sob repressed.
There was a heavy step on the stairway, and Millicent shrank with the nausea of disgust as somebody tried the door. She drew a deep breath of relief, when the steps passed on unevenly.
The memories returned. They led her through a long succession of mistakes, falsehoods, slights and wrongs up to the present, and she shivered again, while a heavy drop of blood splashed warm upon her hand. Then she was mistress of herself once more, and a hazy purpose grew into definite shape. She could at least warn the man whom she had wronged, and so make partial reparation. It was not a wish for revenge upon her husband which prompted her to desire that amends might be made for her past treachery. Smarting with shame, she longed only to escape from him. After the day's revelations she could never forgive that blow.
Millicent was a woman of action, and it was a relief to consider practical details. She decided that a telegram might lie for days at the station nearest the cañon, while what distance divided one from the other she did not know. There was no train before noon the next day, and she feared that the plot might be put into execution as soon as Geoffrey left his camp. Therefore, she must reach it before he did so. Afterwards—but she would not consider the future then, and, if she could but warn him, nothing mattered greatly, neither physical peril nor the risk of her good name.
It was long before Millicent Leslie had thought all this out, but when once her way seemed clear, exhausted by conflicting emotions, she sank into heavy slumber, and the sun was high before she awakened. Leslie had gone to his office, and she ate a little, chose her thickest furs, and waited for noon in feverish suspense. Her husband might return and prevent her departure by force. She feared that, should he guess her intention, a special locomotive might be hired, even after the train had started. It was, therefore, necessary to slip away without word or sign, unless, indeed, she could mislead him, and, smiling mirthlessly, she laid an open letter inside her writing-case.
At last the time came, and she went out carrying only a little hand-bag, passed along the unfrequented water side to the station by the wharf, and ensconced herself in the corner of the car nearest the locomotive, counting the seconds until it should start. Once she trembled when she saw Shackleby hurry along the platform, but she breathed again when he hailed a man leaning out from the vestibule of a car. At last, the big bell clanged, and the Atlantic express, rolling out of the station, began its race across the continent.