Never before had she faced such ugly truths as the girl had poured upon her. Of the cancerous places in the social structure she had known, of course; at times she had even gone so far as to judge herself a wide-awake, keen-seeing woman, but now ... she shuddered as the woman's words came back to her, "White or black or red or brown; but their money was all th' same color." That was too horrible, too revolting; she could not accept it with a detached point of view. Its very truth—she did not doubt it—smirched her, for she had been stealing the man of such a woman!
Oh, that conscience was finding its revenge! That day it had been outraged, had been all but unseated; but now it came back with a vengeance. She, the lawful wife of Ned Lytton, had plotted to win Bruce Bayard. No, she had not! one part of her protested, as she weakened and sought for any escape that meant relief. You did, you did! thundered that older self. By passively accepting, as a fact, her want of him, she had sinned. By finding joy in his touch, at sight of him, she had grievously wronged not only Ned and herself but all people. She was a contaminated thing! She was as bad, worse than Nora Brewster, because, while Nora had sinned, she admitted it, had done it openly, and frankly while she, Ann Lytton, had covered it with a cloak of hypocrisy, had refused to admit her transgressions even to herself and lied and distorted happenings, even her thoughts, until they were made to appease her craven heart!
"She said it; she said it!" Ann muttered aloud. "She said that I was a hypocrite. She said ... she did not hide!" Then, for a moment, she was firm, drawing her body, even, to firmness to contend more effectively against these suggestive accusations. What matter if she were married? What if Bayard did love an abandoned woman? What mattered anything but that she loved him?
And, as though it had waited for her to go that far to show her hand, that other self cried out: "To your God you have given your word to love this man, your husband! To your God you have promised to love no other! To your God you have pledged him your body, your soul, your life, come what may!"
She cowered before the thought, tearless, silent, and sat there, going through and through the same emotional experiences, always coming against the stone wall formed by her concepts of honor and morality.
In another room of the Manzanita House another woman fought with herself that night. Nora, too, stood backed against her locked door a long time after she had gained its refuge, bewildered, trying to think her way to a clear understanding of all that had happened. Its entire consequence came to her sooner than it had come to Ann. She groped along the wall to her matchsafe, scratched a light, removed the chimney from her lamp and set the wick burning. She waved out the match absently, put the charred remains in the oilcloth cover of the washstand and said to herself,
"Well, I've done it."
It was as though she spoke of the accomplishment of an end the advisability of which had been debatable in her mind, and as if there were now no remedy. What was done, was done; events of the past could not be altered, their consequences could not be changed.
She undressed listlessly, put on her nightgown and moved to the crinkled mirror to take down her hair.
"I guess that'll fix her," she muttered. "She'll get out, now...."