"The one who told you I have always loved Bob; life has told me that, Adrian. Just as life has told you my story." They sat without speaking for a time, and then the woman sighed and rose. "Two people who have lived together twenty-five years can have no secrets from each other. In a thousand, ways the truth comes out."
"I should have gone away a long time ago," he repeated, "a long time ago; I knew it, but I didn't trust my instincts."
"Here comes father," she said, as the gate clicked.
They stood together, listening to the slow shuffle of the colonel coming up the walk, and the heavy fall of his cane. The wife put out her hand and said gently, "I think I have wronged you, Adrian, more than any one else."
He did not take her hand but sighed, and turned and went up the wide stairway. He was an old man then, and she remembered the years when he tripped up gayly, and then she looked at her own gray hair in the mirror and saw that her life was spent too.
As the colonel came in gasping asthmatically, he found his daughter waiting for him. "Is Adrian better?" he asked excitedly. "Neal said Adrian was sick."
"Yes, father, he's upstairs packing. He is going out on the four o'clock train."
"Oh," said the colonel, and then panted a moment before asking, "Has any one told you how it happened?"
"Yes," she replied, "I know everything. I think I'll run over there now, father." As she stood in the doorway, she said, "Don't bother Adrian—he'll need no help."
And so Molly Brownwell passed the last night with her dead lover. About midnight the bell rang and she went to the door.