What a mystery he had always been! What a mystery he was now! She had never been certain even of his name. She didn’t know and never would know the secret history of the last fifteen months. Two might tell her—Sutton or the woman in brown. But she did not wish to revive either of them. That was past. Everything was past. She was stripped at last of everything; the world was simply Folly Corner. She felt as a slave might feel when he heard the blows which loosened his shackles. She was free. She had always been free—in the letter; in the spirit she had been a wretched slave. A slave to first love—that indefinable, holding thing.
She turned away suddenly, turned her back on the dead man—not with horror, grief, or repulsion, but apathetically—as if she had seen enough. She dismissed him. She put her head to Jethro’s coat, with the persuasive, rubbing air of a cat.
“I can’t feel,” she said, holding one hand out toward the roughly improvised bier. “I thank God that I don’t feel any longer. I’m not touched in the least, not even by ordinary natural emotions. I’m not sorry; I’m not ashamed; I’m not even glad. I’m only free. Jethro!”
“Dear love!” His great hand was on her hair.
“I don’t feel—for him,” she went on with more passion, “the ordinary pity and sadness that one feels for any dead thing. I can’t—for him. There’s no dignity, no pathos in Death when it touches him. You mustn’t think me hard; mustn’t put this down to vengeance because he injured me. I can still feel pity. I cried only this morning over a tomtit which the cat had mangled. But I don’t cry for this. I don’t feel. I’m stone where he is concerned. Until to-night I have been wax. I’m not sorry or shocked; not anything womanly, anything human that I ought to be. I can’t feel. I’m free. Take me away. We’ll get warm in the house.”
They stepped out into the driving snow. The world was white and pitiless that night.
The door thudded solemnly when Jethro pulled it to. He had his arm round Pamela, his coat held out to form a screen for her. Midway to the house she stopped, the blinding, desolate snow whirling above their heads. She looked up and he looked down. There was a strange fire in each pair of eyes. Suddenly he stooped and kissed her on the mouth—roughly, brutally.
Her mouth smarted with the rudeness of that kiss, but a sweet, permanent content ran through her body. He loved her! She would be Cousin Pamela no more, save in the tender jest of matrimony. He had always loved her. His reserve, his brotherly attitude, had been forced. They were part of his prudent nature, part of his hereditary economy. He would never expend when there was small chance of any result.
The house was warm—a gently filtering warmth that seemed to wrap them directly they shut the door.
The discreet clink of china, the savory smell of soup, came from the kitchen. They were preparing dinner—the place was wholly regardless of that miserable dead man.