"I wonder if you understand women, Mr. Carroll? I wonder if it is possible for you to comprehend their psychological reactions? Because if you cannot—you will never understand what Roland Warren meant to me. You will never understand the condition which has led to—this tragedy."
She paused and Carroll nodded. "You can trust me to understand."
"I believe you do. I believe you understand something of what was going on within me when Roland came into my life. In the light of what has transpired, the fact that I was neglected by my husband seems absurd—trivial. But it is not absurd—it is not trivial!
"Mr. Warren was kind to me. He was attentive—courteous—I believe that he really loved me. I may have been fooled, of course. Starved as I was for the affection of a man, I may have been blind to the sincerity of his protestations. But I believed him.
"As to how I felt toward him: I don't know. I liked him—admired him. I believe that I loved him. But again we are faced with the abnormal condition in which I found myself. I believe I loved him as I believe he loved me. He represented a chance for life when for three years I had been dead—living and breathing—yet dead as a woman. And that is the most terrible of all deaths.
"We planned to elope. Don't ask me how I could consider such a thing. There is no answer possible. It wasn't a sane decision—but I decided that I would. There was the craving to get away from things—to try to start over. To revel in the richest things of life for awhile. I was selfish—unutterably so. I didn't think then of the effect on my husband—or of the effect on Evelyn. I was selfish—yes. But immoral—no! What I planned to do—under the circumstances—was not immoral. Even yet I cannot convince myself that it was.
"Roland laid all his plans to leave the city. In all my delirium of preparation—the hiding and the secrecy—I felt sincerely sorry for only one person, and that person was Hazel Gresham to whom Mr. Warren was engaged. I believe she was in love with him. But so was I—and if he loved me—as I said before, Mr. Carroll—I was selfish!
"On the morning of the day we were to go—my husband was in Nashville, you know—Mr. Warren came to the house in his car. He showed me that he had reserved a drawing-room for us to New York. In order that we would not be seen together, he gave me one of the railroad tickets. I was to reach the Union Station ten minutes before train time. If you recall—the train on which we were to go was quite late that night.
"We planned not to talk to one another at the station until after boarding the train. Morning would have published news of the scandal broadcast, but until the irrevocable step had been taken—we determined to avoid gossip. And, Mr. Carroll—I was then—what is called a 'good woman'. My faithlessness up to that time, and to this moment, had been mental—and mental only.
"When he left me that morning he took with him my suit-case. We had agreed that I was not to take a trunk: that I was to buy—a trousseau—in New York. I looked upon it almost as a honeymoon. He took my suit-case to the Union Station and checked it there. I did not see him again that day."