“Since you desire a formal oath,” he said, “I will take it in the form you have prescribed.”
And there he renounced her eternally as she had just before renounced him.
He looked at his watch. To his utter astonishment it was past six o’clock. With an exclamation of dismay, he set about preparing for departure.
How the night had passed so quickly he could not tell. “There is no need for you to keep these any longer,” he said, holding up the slippers. She herself had worked them for him in a fit of adoring industry.
“No. Nor the other things.”
She took a small bundle neatly wrapped up in brown paper and handed it to him. He thrust it beneath his arm.
“Good-bye, Minna,” he said, holding out his hand. “We did not swear to be enemies. May your new life be happier than the old.”
“It could not well be more miserable,” she answered. But she gave him her hand, cold and nerveless. “Poor child,” he said, “God help you.”
He turned, left the room, and then the house by the way by which he had entered. A fine snow was falling through the not yet lifting darkness. He hurried homewards blindly, thinking of nothing but the strange chapter of the night, his heart relieved already of enormous burdens, but his temples throbbing with the strain of casting them off.
He met not a soul until he had passed the Merriams’ house. Then, as he neared the town, dark, straggling figures of workmen passed him, trudging on sleepily through the snow and darkness.