"Oh, I know!" said Susan, in sudden passionate assent.
"But don't misunderstand me, dear, you're not to be hurried or troubled in this thing. We'll think, and talk things over, and plan. My world is a broader and saner world than yours is, Susan, and when I take you there you will be as honored and as readily accepted as any woman among them all. My wife will set me free---" he fell into a muse, as they walked along the quiet country road, and Susan, her brain a mad whirl of thoughts, did not interrupt him. "I believe she will set me free," he said, "as soon as she knows that my happiness, and all my life, depend upon it. It can be done; it can be arranged, surely. You know that our eastern divorce laws are different from yours here, Susan---"
"I think I must be mad to let you talk so!" burst out Susan, "You must not! Divorce---! Why, my aunt---!"
"We'll not mention it again," he assured her quickly, but although for the rest of their walk they said very little, the girl escaped upstairs to her room before dinner with a baffled sense that the dreadful word, if unpronounced, had been none the less thundering in her brain and his all the way.
She made herself comfortable in wrapper and slippers, rather to the satisfaction of Emily, who had brought Peter back to dinner, barely touched the tray that the sympathetic Lizzie brought upstairs, and lay trying to read a book that she flung aside again and again for the thoughts that would have their way.
She must think this whole thing out, she told herself desperately; view it dispassionately and calmly; decide upon the best and quickest step toward reinstating the old order, toward blotting out this last fortnight of weakness and madness. But, if Susan was fighting for the laws of men, a force far stronger was taking arms against her, the great law of nature held her in its grip. The voice of Stephen Bocqueraz rang across her sanest resolution; the touch of Stephen Bocqueraz's hand burned her like a fire.
Well, it had been sent to her, she thought resentfully, lying back spent and exhausted; she had not invited it. Suppose she accepted it; suppose she sanctioned his efforts to obtain a divorce, suppose she were married to him--And at the thought her resolutions melted away in the sudden delicious and enervating wave of emotion that swept over her. To belong to him!
"Oh, my God, I do not know what to do!" Susan whispered. She slipped to her knees, and buried her face in her hands. If her mind would but be still for a moment, would stop its mad hurry, she might pray.