From the first a sense of the unreality of what had occurred came to Mrs. Doring and never left her. She followed the sable carriage of the dead to the cemetery, and returned to find his chair vacant, his pen idle, his presence gone forever, yet it was not like reality,—none of it. She shed no tears, nor was she sad. After the first startled moment she was at peace, though she knew not why.
Later she understood, as will all of us after a little time. Now we weep and moan over sorrow, questioning it all, resenting it all; but a day is coming when we shall see and know and understand, and in that day we shall re-name many things, having until then miscalled them.
Now another serious event confronted Mrs. Doring. She had done her best to save her husband from himself but could not. Now she saw clearly at last, after much striving to bring compatibility out of incompatibility, that their union was a sham, a pretence, a lie, which if persisted in could only bring destruction to both of them. The conviction came to her that it must end.
Few experiences are bitterer or sadder for a sensitive, proud, high-spirited woman, than to face a domestic calamity like this. To see the love upon which she had founded her dearest hopes turn to ashes; to have what she once thought happiness become a burden so intolerable that it must be cast down, acknowledging disappointment, defeat and humiliation before the world, is, indeed, a bitter cup.
The coarse, the malicious, the undeveloped have sneers, jeers and taunts for this order of sufferer; but the enlightened, the truly moral bow before her reverently, not only because she has suffered, but because she stands for a great principle.
That the separation must be legal as well as actual, she saw would be best for both. Though the laws of their state were as humane as most others, still they had not evolved beyond the point, where in order to secure freedom from irksome marital bonds one of the parties must make a damaging charge against the other.
In talking it over with her husband she said, “We can arrange that as decently as the law will permit. If I make the application, I shall put it on the most inoffensive ground possible. If that is not agreeable to you, I will leave you and you can charge me with desertion.”
Doring determined to do at once what he had long been arranging to do slyly, which was to go away himself, and as a Parthian arrow announced that he had intended to do so for sometime, but not alone.
It was a curious ending of the most delicate and important relation in life. Cartice gathered his effects together, packing everything with careful hands. When he went she watched him out of sight, and out of her life. Late into the night she still sat at the window, with a white face and eyes that stared into the darkness yet saw only the scenes of the past.