Ah!--she caught her breath sobbingly, "The left-off rapture of a slain caress!" Yes,--that would be her portion now if--if she stayed to receive it. But she would not stay! She turned over the volume abstractedly, scarcely conscious of the action,--and suddenly, as if the poet-writer of it had been present to probe her soul and make her inmost thoughts public, she read:-"Because I am unlov'd of thee to-day, And undesired as sea-weeds in the sea!"
Yes!--that was the "because" of everything that swayed her sorrowful spirit,--"because" she was "unlov'd and undesired."
She hesitated no longer, but shut the book with her farewell letter inside it, and put it back in its former place on the little table beside Philip's arm-chair. Then she considered how she should distinguish it by some mark that should attract her husband's attention toward it,--and loosening from her neck a thin gold chain on which was suspended a small diamond cross with the names "Philip" and "Thelma" engraved at the back, she twisted it round the little book, and left it so that the sparkle of the jewels should be seen distinctly on the cover. Now was there anything more to be done? She divested herself of all her valuable ornaments, keeping only her wedding-ring and its companion circlet of brilliants,--she emptied her purse of all money save that which was absolutely necessary for her journey--then she put on her hat, and began to fasten her long cloak slowly, for her fingers were icy cold and trembled very strangely. Stay,--there was her husband's portrait,--she might take that, she thought, with a sort of touching timidity. It was a miniature on ivory--and had been painted expressly for her,--she placed it inside her dress, against her bosom.
"He has been too good to me," she murmured; "and I have been too happy,--happier than I deserved to be. Excess of happiness must always end in sorrow."
She looked dreamily at Philip's empty chair--in fancy she could see his familiar figure seated there, and she sighed as she thought of the face she loved so well,--the passion of his eyes,--the tenderness of his smile. Softly she kissed the place where his head had rested,--then turned resolutely away.
She was giving up everything, she thought, to another woman,--but then--that other woman, however incredible it seemed, was the one Philip loved best,--his own written words were a proof of this. There was no choice therefore,--his pleasure was her first consideration,--everything must yield to that, so she imagined,--her own life was nothing, in her estimation, compared to his desire. Such devotion as hers was of course absurd--it amounted to weak self-immolation, and would certainly be accounted as supremely foolish by most women who have husbands, and who, when they swear to "obey," mean to break the vow at every convenient opportunity--but Thelma could not alter her strange nature, and, with her, obedience meant the extreme letter of the law of utter submission. Leaving the room she had so lately called her own, she passed into the entrance-hall. Morris was not there, and she did not summon him,--she opened the street-door for herself, and shutting it quietly behind her, she stood alone in the cold street, where the fog had now grown so dense that the lamp-posts were scarcely visible. She walked on for a few paces rather bewildered and chilled by the piercing bitterness of the air,--then, rallying her forces, she hailed a passing cab, and told the man to take her to Charing Cross Station. She was not familiar with London--and Charing Cross was the only great railway terminus she could just then think of.