saying is, had
"deceived" her. For this ghostly examination of her husband's work
convinced her that Jack did not belong to her, never had,--the stronger,
better part of him. She had lived for eight years, more or less happily,
with a stranger. She understood now that domestic intimacy, the petty
exchanges of daily life, even the habit of physical passion, cannot make
two souls one....

She turned at last from the picture with weariness, a heavy heart. It
had all been wrong, their marriage, and still more wrong their going on
with it "in the brave way." Well, _he_ was done with the mistake at
last, and he could not be sorry. She was almost glad for him.

* * * * *

Her brother-in-law had asked her to look through her husband's papers
for an insurance policy he thought Jack had taken on his advice. In the
old desk Bragdon had used there was a mass of letters and bills, a great
many unpaid bills, some of which she had given him months and months
before and had supposed were paid. There were two letters in an odd
foreign hand that she knew instantly must be the Russian woman's. The
first was dated from the _manoir_ at Klerac on the evening of their
sudden departure. Milly hesitated a moment as if she must respect the
secrets of the dead, then with a last trace of jealousy tore it open and
read the lines:--

... "So you have decided--you are going back. You will give up all
that you have won, all that might be yours,--and ours. I knew it
would be so. The puritan in you has won the day,--the weak side.
You will never be content with what you are doing, never. I have
seen far enough within your soul to know that.... I ask nothing for
myself--I have had enough,--no, not that,--but more than I could
hope. But for you, who have the great power in you, it is not
right. You cannot live like that.... Some day you will be glad as I
am that we were not little people, but drank life when it was at
our lips."

Milly dropped the letter and stared blankly at the dark wall opposite.
What it revealed did not come to her with shock, because she had always
felt sure that it had been so. What startled her was the realization for
the first time how much the experience had meant to both,--the
examination of the picture and the silence of death enabled her to
understand that. He had had the strength--or was it rather weakness?--to
do "the right thing," to reno