The room stifled her. She fetched her cape and hat. They were lying upon his table, and as she took them she could see the sheets of an unfinished letter. The writing was firm and fine, with the regular alignment and spacing of one who is deft about handwork. Her eye glanced over the page; the letter was in answer to a doctor in Baltimore, who had asked him to cooperate in preparing a surgical monograph. "I should like extremely to be with you in this," ran the lines, like the voice of the speaking man, "but—and the refusal pains me more than you know—I cannot in honesty undertake the work. I have not suitable conditions. It is eighteen months since I entered a hospital, and I am behind the times. And, for the present, I see no prospect of being in a condition to undertake the work. I advise you to try Muller, or—" There the letter broke off, unfinished. She raised it to her lips and kissed it. This was another sign, and she would heed it. To be a full man he must return to the poor average world, or be less than the trivial people he had always despised.
When she opened the door, the level rays of the western sun blinded her. There was no wind. Eastward the purple shadows had thickened, effacing the line of light along the horizon. The frozen lake stretched, ridged and furrowed, into the gloom. Toward it she walked,—slowly, irresistibly drawn by its limitless bosom.
She had boasted to Miss Hitchcock, "I will take myself out of his life, if need be." It was not an empty, woman's boast. She was strong enough to do what she willed. The time had come. She would not see him again. To break with words the ties between them would but dishonor them both. They must not discuss this thing. At the shore of the pool where they had put on their skates in the morning she paused, shaken with a new thought. The woman would come back on the morrow, and, without one word of denial from her, would tell him that terrible lie, confirming his old suspicions. She must see him,—she could not leave him with that foul memory,—and she returned to the temple in the hope that he was already there. The little building, however, was empty and desolate, and she sat down by the fire to wait.
The story, the denial of it, no longer seemed important. She would write him what she had to say, and go away. She would tell him that she had not poisoned her husband like a sick dog, and he would believe the solemn last words. She took a sheet of paper from his table and wrote hesitatingly:
"Dear Howard: I am leaving you——forever." Then she began again and again, but at last she came back to the first words and wrote on desperately: "I cannot make you understand it all. But one thing I must tell you, and you must believe it. That horrible woman, Mrs. Ducharme, was here this morning and told me that I had given opiates to my husband when he was ill in the cottage, and had killed him, and that you knew it. Somehow I remembered things that made me know you thought so, had always thought so. Perhaps you will still think it must have been so, her story is so terribly probable.
"O Howard, you used to think that it would be right—but I couldn't. I might have in time, but I couldn't then. I did nothing to hasten his death. Believe this, if you love me the least.
"That isn't the sole reason why I leave you. But it is all like that. I ruin the world for you. Love is not all,—at least for a man,—and somehow with me you cannot have the rest and love. We were wrong to rebel—I was wrong to take my happiness. I longed so! I have been so happy!
"Alves."
It seemed pitifully inadequate—a few wavering lines—to tell the tale of the volumes in her heart. But with a sigh she pushed back the chair and gathered her hat and cape. Once more she hesitated, and seeing that the fire in the stove was low, replenished it. Then she turned swiftly away, locked the door,—putting the key where they hid it, in the hollow of a pillar,—and walked rapidly in the direction of the lake.
It was already nearly dusk. Little groups of skaters were sauntering homeward from the lagoons and the patches of inshore ice. The lake was gray and stern. She gained the esplanade, with a vague purpose of walking into the city, of taking the train for Wisconsin. But as she passed the long pier, the desire to walk out on the ice seized her once more. With some difficulty she gained the black ice after scrambling over the debris piled high against the beach. When she reached the clear spaces she walked slowly toward the open lake. The gloom of the winter night was already gathering; as she passed the head of the pier, a park-guard hailed her, with some warning cry. She paid no attention, but walked on, slowly picking her way among the familiar ice hills, in and out of the floes.