[She had borne up so far; but now she put the pen aside, and bent her head down on to her hands, and her frame was shaken with her sobbing. When she resumed, she could scarcely see for the bitter tears that kept welling her eyes.]
"—and you think, looking at these cold words on the paper, that it was easy for me to do so. It has not been so easy. I pray God to bless you, and keep you brave and true and unselfish, and give you happiness in the success of your work. And I ask a line from you in reply—not sad, but something that I may look at from time to time, and that will make me believe you have plenty of interests and hopes in the world, and that you do not altogether regret that you and I met, and were friends, for a time.
NATALIE."
This was a strange thing: she took another sheet of paper, and slowly and with a trembling hand wrote on it these words, "Your Wife." That was all. No doubt it was the signature she had hoped one day to use. She regarded it long, and earnestly, and sadly, until, indeed, she could not see it for the tears that rose afresh into her eyes. Then she tore up the piece of paper hastily, folded her letter and addressed it, without sealing the envelope, and carried it into the other room.
"Read it mother," she said; and she turned to the window to conceal her tear-stained face.
The mother opened the letter and glanced at it.
"You forget, child," she said. "I know so little English. Tell me what it is you have written."
So she was forced to turn; and apparently, as she spoke, she was quite calm; but there was a darkness underneath her eyes, and there was in her look something of the worn, sad expression of her mother's face. Briefly and simply she repeated the substance of the letter, giving no reasons or
justifications. She seemed to take it for granted that her decision was unavoidable, and would be seen to be so by every one.
"Natalushka," the mother said, looking anxiously at the troubled face, "do you know what you are about to do? It is an act of expiation for something you have not committed."