Jim was sitting there with his fingers on the cheque that was to be their means of reconciliation, and with the tears already banked in his unuttered speech, when Clara put her head in the door. She had her hat on. She said:
“I’m going to the post.”
Jim removed his hand from his breast-pocket. He sat back, and heard the door slam.
“I’ll tell her when she comes in.”
Clara never came in. He waited half-an-hour, and then he thought:
“She’s gone to some dissipation with a friend. Oh, well, I must wait up till she returns, I suppose. I’m sorry she has disappointed me on—a night like this, though.”
He sat dreaming in the chair, till he became suddenly painfully aware of cold. It was quite dark. He lighted the gas. It was one o’clock. He felt his heart beating with a physical dread. Something had happened to Clara. Perhaps she had been run over, at the very moment when everything was going to change for the better for her. He blundered his way out into the hall, where a gas-jet flickered feebly, and groped for his overcoat. On it he found a note pinned. He turned up the gas higher, and read:
“I’m going off to Ted Woollams. I’m sick of you, and the stinking little house. Ted’s made a bit in America, and I give you the address. You can do what you like about it, but it’s no good you ever trying to get me back.
“Clara.”