The Great Amulet | Page 9

could not give me all I wanted at the start. One hoped to set
that right, in time. But to accept me because another man's defection
had piqued your vanity, . . . God knows how you could dare to do it! I
see now why you found me unlike an ordinary lover. No doubt that
other fellow--curse him--took full advantage of his privileged position:
while to me you seemed a thing so sacred that I hardly dared lay a hand
on you. I might have known that a man who is fool enough to put a
woman on a pedestal, is bound to pay a long price for his folly."
He was lashing himself more mercilessly than he lashed her: and in the
torment of his spirit he did not pause to consider the possible effect of
his words on a recklessly impulsive woman.
"Really . . . you are insufferable!" she retorted, her breath coming short
and quick. "I have a little pride also; and you had better stop before you
push me too far. For I tell you frankly, I don't care enough for you to
stand this sort of treatment at your hands."
The counter-stroke stung like a lash. The lines about his mouth
hardened, and he straightened himself sharply.
"Pity you were not more frank with me twenty-four hours ago. Then we
might both have been spared this morning's ironical service. However,
the thing is done now. . . ."

"Indeed, it's not done!" she flashed out defiantly. "I have no notion of
being your wife on sufferance, I assure you. We are only on the
threshold as yet. We need not go a step farther unless we choose. And
after what you have said to me, . . . I do not choose."
For an instant the man was stunned into silence; then, in a desperate
impulse, took a step towards her.
"Quita, . . . you don't realise what you are saying? Nothing can alter the
fact that we are man and wife, now and always."
She motioned him from her with an imperious gesture.
"Don't touch me, please. I do realise, perfectly, that we are not free to
make any more dangerous experiments. But we are at least free to live
and work independently of one another. Of course I know that you can
compel me to remain with you,"--her colour deepened on the
words.--"But I know also that you have too much chivalry, too much
pride, to force yourself upon me against my wish."
"By God, yes!" he answered from between his teeth. "And . . . what is
your wish, may I ask?"
For the first time she hesitated, and lowered her eyes.
"I believe our wishes are identical," she said.
"No need to trouble about mine. You can put them out of court
altogether."
His tone spurred her to instant decision.
"My wish is to go back to Zermatt at once, by the funicular; and . . .
that we should not see one another again. I will accept nothing from
you. I can earn my own living, as I have done till now. Thank God,
Michael is too blessedly Bohemian to make a fuss, or be horrified at
things. He will simply be overjoyed to get me back."
She turned from him hastily; and he stood, like a man paralysed,

watching her go. On the threshold of the bedroom door she looked
back.
"Don't think of writing to me, or of trying to patch up a reconciliation
between us," she said on a softened note. "Mended things are never
reliable. I can neither forget nor forgive what you have said to me
to-day, and when you have had time to think things over, you will
probably feel thankful that I had the courage to leave you."
The soft closing of the door roused him, and he sprang forward with
her name on his lips. Then Pride gripped him; Pride, and the habit of
self-mastery hammered into him by his redoubtable uncle. The fact that
our spirits thus live and work, deathlessly, in the lives and hearts of
those with whom we have come into contact, is a form of immortality
too seldom recognised by man.
In the silence that followed, Lenox looked blankly round the empty
room:--the room where they should have spent their first evening
together. Then the irony, the finality of it all, overwhelmed him, and he
sank upon the nearest chair. "What have I done? . . . My God, what
have I done?" he breathed aloud. And it is characteristic of the man that,
for all his grinding sense of injury, he blamed himself more bitterly
than he blamed his wife.
His eye fell on the letter, which, had it contained a bombshell, could
scarce have