A horse kicked him in the head, after he fell,--he
had just recovered consciousness."

I took the telegram. The wordy seemed meaningless, all save those of
the last sentence. "The situation is serious, but by no means hopeless."
Nancy had not spoken of that. The ignorant cruelty of its convention!
The man must have known what Hambleton Durrett was! Nancy read my
thoughts, and took the paper from my hand.

"Hugh, dear, if it's hard for you, try to understand that it's terrible
for me to think that he has any claim at all. I realize now, as I never
did before, how wicked it was in me to marry him. I hate him, I can't
bear the thought of going near him."

She fell into wild weeping. I tried to comfort her, who could
not comfort myself; I don't remember my inadequate words. We were
overwhelmed, obliterated by the sense of calamity.... It was she who
checked herself at last by an effort that was almost hysterical.

"I mustn't yield to it!" she said. "It's time to leave and the train
goes at six. No, you mustn't come to the station, Hugh--I don't think
I could stand it. I'll send you a telegram." She rose. "You must go
now--you must."

"You'll come back to me?" I demanded thickly, as I held her.

"Hugh, I am yours, now and always. How can you doubt it?"

At last I released her, when she had begged me again. And I found
myself a little later walking past the familiar, empty houses of those
streets....

The front pages of the evening newspapers announced the accident to
Hambleton Durrett, and added that Mrs. Durrett, who had been lingering
in the city, had gone to her husband's bedside. The morning papers
contained more of biography and ancestry, but had little to add to the
bulletin; and there was no lack of speculation at the Club and elsewhere
as to Ham's ability to rally from such a shock. I could not bear to
listen to these comments: they were violently distasteful to me. The
unforeseen accident and Nancy's sudden departure had thrown my life
completely out of gear: I could not attend to business, I dared not
go away lest the news from Nancy be delayed. I spent the hours in an
exhausting mental state that alternated between hope and fear, a
state of unmitigated, intense desire, of balked realization, sometimes
heightening into that sheer terror I had felt when I had detected over
the telephone that note in her voice that seemed of despair. Had she had
a presentiment, all along, that something would occur to separa