“There,” she said again, “good-night! Good-bye!”
Amazed, thrilled, speechless, Barry found himself on the porch of the house, the door closed behind him, darkness, silence and the distant lights of the city before him as he stood.
Back of the closed door, again locked and bolted, Mary Bradley resumed her preparation for flight. Emotions, whispering and thundering by turns, followed each other in quick succession across her mind. Ah, but they were right who charged her with having a romantic fondness for the minister! It was more than a fondness. It was the one blinding passion of her pinched and sunless life, and it mattered little to her now who knew it. Time was when she had hoped, in some unknown way, in some ideal social state, by means of which she had but a dim and dream-driven conception, to gratify her longing. That was when, as a modern, scouting law, flouting religion, decrying the social order, she had deluded herself with the belief that she had a moral right to seek happiness where she could find it. Born in penury, reared to toil, trained to godlessness, steeped in a philosophy that taught her that love should never be restrained by man-made barriers, she had had neither the will nor the conscience to curb or master her imperious desire. But now the end had come. The cup from which she would have drunk had been struck from her lips. It lay shattered at her feet, the red wine spilled and lost. So she must take herself away, out of his life. Not that she loved him less, but rather more; and so, loving him more, she was ready, for his sake, to sacrifice herself in order that reproach might never again fall upon him.
Through half the night, toiling and tempest-driven, she prepared for her departure. But when Monday came the desire to linger for yet another day overpowered her will, and she yielded. She ate little, slept little, talked little, but moved unceasingly about her narrow rooms. To the queries and protests and misgivings of her querulous old mother she turned, for the most part, a deaf ear. At dusk, on Monday evening, as if through some sudden impulse, she put on her hat and coat.
“Where you goin’?” inquired the old woman.
“I don’t know, mother.”
“How long you goin’ to be gone?”
“A few minutes maybe; maybe forever.”
“You talk queer; you act queer. I don’t want you to go out.”
“No harm will come to me, mother.”