"Yes," she returned. "I can write."
All the emotion had gone from her voice. She said the words as meaninglessly as a parrot might.
"A letter has distinct advantages," remarked Alden, trying to speak lightly. "You can say all you want to say before the other person has a chance to put in a word."
"Yes," she agreed, in the same meaningless tone. "That is true."
"When," queried Alden, after a pause, "will you write?"
"To-morrow."
He nodded his satisfaction. "Tell him," he suggested, "that you love another man, and----"
"No," she interrupted, "I won't tell him that. I'll say that I've tried my best to be a good wife, that I've tried as best I knew to make him happy. I'll say I've--" she choked on the word--"I'll say I've failed. I'll tell him I can do no more, that I do not believe I can ever do any better than I have done, and ask him to tell me frankly whether or not he prefers to be free. That's all."
How Different?
"That isn't enough. You have rights----"
"We're not speaking of my rights," she said, coldly. "We're speaking of his."
A silence fell between them, tense and awkward. The open gate between them had turned gently upon its hinges, then closed, with a suggestion of finality. The clock struck the half hour. Outside, the cricket still chirped cheerily, regardless of the great issues of life and love.
"Come outside," Alden pleaded, taking her hand in his.
"No," she said, but she did not withdraw her hand.
"Come, dear--come!"
He led her out upon the veranda where the moon made far-reaching shadows with the lattice and the climbing rose, then returned for chairs, the same two in which they had sat the night before. She was the first to break the pause.
"How different it all is!" she sighed. "Last night we sat here in the moonlight, just where we are now. In twenty-four hours, everything has changed."
"The face of all the world is changed, I think, Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul."
he quoted softly.
When They Knew "When did you--know?" she asked.
"The night I read Rossetti to you and kissed your arm, do you remember? It rushed upon me like an overwhelming flood. When did you know?"
"I think I've always known--not the fact, exactly, but the possibility of it. The first night I came, I knew that you and I could care a great deal for each other--not that we ever would, but merely that we might, under different circumstances. In a way, it was as though a set of familiar conditions might be seen in a different aspect, or in a different light."