The Letter of the Contract Part 4

She repeated the words more firmly.

"_Never_."

"Then I'm afraid it will be for me to abandon you." She gave him a little nod. "Good-by."

She had turned and taken a step or two along the pavement before his astonishment allowed him to overtake her.

"Edith, for G.o.d's sake, what do you mean? You're not crazy, are you?"

"Quite possibly I am; I can't tell yet. Or perhaps I _can_ tell. It's like this," she went on, after an instant's thinking. "A half-hour ago, while I was talking to that--that poor creature--before you came up--I was quite aware of being like a woman with a dose of cyanide of pota.s.sium in her hand, and doubting whether or not to take it. Well, I took it. I took it and I--died. That is, the Edith who was your wife--died. What survives of her personality is something else. I don't know what it is yet--it's too soon to say--but it isn't your wife....

It's--it's something like that."

"Oh, don't!" he groaned. "Don't talk that way. Come in. You can't stay out here."

She looked over at the house again. He thought she shuddered. "I can't stay out here; but I don't have to go in--there."

"What do you mean? Where are you going?"

"Just now I'm going to Aunt Emily's."

"Very well. I'll send a carriage for you after dinner--if you stay so late."

"No; don't do that."

"Do you mean--?"

"I mean that I may stay there for two or three days--perhaps longer.

After that I'll--I'll see."

"You'll see--what?"

"Where to go next."

"Oh, come, Edie, let's talk sense. You know I can't allow that."

She smiled again, with that queer, forlorn smile that seemed to stab him. "I'm afraid the authority is out of your hands--now."

He let that pa.s.s.

"Even so, there are the children. Think of them."

"I _am_ thinking of them--which is why I must hurry away. They'll be here in a minute; and I--I can't see them yet. I shouldn't be able to bear it."

"And do you think you'll be able to bear our being separated for two or three days, when you _know_ I adore you? Why, you'll break down within an hour."

"That's just it. That's why I must hurry. I shall break down within half an hour. You don't suppose I can go on like this? I'm almost breaking down now. I must get to Aunt Emily's before--"

She was interrupted by a cry: "h.e.l.lo, papa!"

Up the pathway leading from the Zoo a little white-suited man of five came prancing and screaming, followed by another of three doing the same. The French governess marched primly and sedately behind them.

"You see?" Edith said, quickly. "I must go. I can't see them to-night--or speak to them--or kiss them--or hear them say their prayers--or anything. You wouldn't understand; but--but I couldn't bear it. You must tell them I've gone to spend a few nights with Aunt Emily, as I did when she was ill. You must say that to the servants, too. Tell Jenny she needn't send me anything--yet. I have some things there--that I left the last time--"

"Oh, you're not going to stay all night," he groaned. "You'll come back."

"Very well. If I come back--I come back. It will be so much the better or so much the worse, as the case may be. If I come back, it will be because I accept the compromise you make between me and--and your other--"

He broke in hastily. "It's not a compromise--and there's no 'other.' If you could see how far from vital the whole thing is, from a man's point of view--"

"Unfortunately, I'm only a woman, and can see it only from a woman's point of view. So that, if I don't come back, it will be because--because--the Edith who was your wife is dead beyond resurrection."

"But she isn't!"

"Perhaps not. We must see. I shall know better when I've--I've been away from you a little."

"And in the mean time you may be risking your happiness and mine."

She shot him a reproachful glance. "Do _you_ say that?"

"Yes, Edith, I do say it. If I've broken the letter of the contract, you may be transgressing its spirit. Don't forget that. Take care. What I did, I did because I couldn't help it. You _can_ help it--"

"Oh no, I can't. That's where you haven't understood me. You say I don't see things from your point of view, and perhaps I don't. But neither do you see them from mine. You wonder why I don't go over there"--she nodded toward the house--"where I had my home--where my children have theirs--where you and I ... But I can't. That's all I can say. I may do it some day; I don't know. But just now--I couldn't drag myself up the steps. It would mean that we were going on as before, when all that--that sort of thing--seems to me so--so utterly over."

"You'll feel differently when you've had time to think."

"Perhaps I shall. And time to think is all I'm asking. You understand that, don't you? that I'm not making anything definite--yet. If I can ever come back to you, I will. But if I can't--"

"h.e.l.lo, mama! h.e.l.lo, papa!" The elder boy galloped up. "We've seen the monkeys. And one great big monkey looked like--"

"Allo, maman! Allo, papa! N's avons vu les singes--mais des droles!

Il y en avait un qui--"

The children caught their father round the knees. Stooping, he put his arms about them, urging them toward their mother. They were to plead for him--to be his advocates.

"Tell mama," he whispered to the older boy, "not to go to Aunt Emily's to-night. Tell her we can't do without her--that we want her at home."

He turned to the younger. "Dis a maman que tu vas pleurer si elle te quitte ce soir--qu'il faut qu'elle vienne t'ecouler dire la priere."

But, when he raised himself, Edith was already walking swiftly up the Avenue. He would have followed her, only that the children seemed to restrain him, clinging to his knees. All he could do was to watch her--watch her while the thronging crowds and the shimmering sun-shot dust of the golden afternoon blotted her from his sight--and the great city-world out of which he had received her took her back.

II

RESENTMENT

It was a strange sensation to be free. It was still more strange that it was not a sensation. It was a kind of numbness. She could only feel that she didn't feel. In spite of her repeated silent a.s.sertions, "I'm free!