There are moralists who will assure us the knowledge of having done
right brings its own consolation. And in good books, about good women,
the heroine experiences a sense of peace and satisfaction after having
resigned the forbidden joy of her life. But Theodora was only a human
being, so she spent the night in wild, passionate regret.
She had done right with no stern sense of the word "Right" written up in
front of her, but because she was so true and so sweet that she must
keep her word and not betray Josiah. She did not analyze anything. Life
was over for her, whatever came now could only find her numb. By an
early train Josiah left for London.
"Take care of yourself, my love," he had said, as he looked in at her
door, "and write to me this afternoon as to what train you decide to
leave by on Thursday."
She promised she would, and he departed, thoroughly satisfied with his
visit among the great world.
The day was spent as the other days, and after lunch Theodora escaped to
her room. She must write her letter to Josiah for the afternoon's post.
She had discovered the train left at eleven o'clock. It did not take her
long, this little note to her husband, and then she sat and stared into
space for a while.
The terrible reaction had begun. There was no more excitement, only the
flatness, the blank of the days to look forward to, and that unspeakable
sense of loss and void. And oh, she had let Hector go without one word
of her passionate love! She had been too unnerved to answer him when he
had said his last good-bye to her in the wood.
She seized the pen again which had dropped from her hand. She would
write to him. She would tell him her thoughts--in a final farewell. It
might comfort him, and herself, too.
So she wrote and wrote on, straight out from her heart, then she found
she had only just time to take the letters to the hall.
She closed Hector's with a sigh, and picking up Josiah's, already
fastened, she ran with them quickly down the stairs.
There was an immense pile of correspondence--the accumulation of
Whitsuntide.
The box that usually received it was quite full, and several letters lay
about on the table.
She placed her two with the rest, and turned to leave the hall. She
could not face all the company on the lawn just yet, and went back to
her room, meeting Morella Winmarleigh bringing some of her own to be
posted as she passed through the saloon.