"It is Mr. ----" said Miss Murray from the telephone. "Will you speak to him, Suzanne?"
"No," said Suzanne curtly. "Tell him I'm out of town. Tell him anything. I don't care."
Thus did the Nemesis of Suzanne's joyous tilting with the universe overtake her. At the moment when victory seemed well within her hands life had struck back. Like the star of the seer's vision, the star of her ambition fell burning into the waters.
"And the name of the star is called wormwood; and the third part of the waters became wormwood and many died of the waters because they were made bitter."
At the station in Norton, Roger Minot waited with his car to meet Suzanne--a crushed anguished Suzanne, her pertness and her prettiness equally in eclipse. She could only put out her hand to him with a little moan and gasp "Mother?"
"She is holding her own. There is hope--at least a little," he told her. "When did you start?"
"From New York?"
"From Salt Lake City?"
"I haven't been in Salt Lake City for days. I got to New York yesterday. I didn't know. I didn't know. Oh, Roger, it's dreadful! I've been so selfish--so everything that is horrid."
Roger Minot looked straight ahead of him and said nothing. Perhaps he knew it was for the good of Suzanne's soul to taste the whole acrid cup of her remorse.