She tried to recall Longacre’s face when he questioned, “Is that yes?” But she only saw the confused distraction with which he had answered Julia’s seeking look. She knew he belonged to her as never before. But she felt guilty, uneasy, criminal. She was suffering. She pressed her hands on her smarting eyes, with her old impulse for reason crying, “Why?” What had she done? Whom had she robbed? She had only taken what was hers. Rather, it had been given freely, freely, she told herself insistently. Surely they belonged to each other, herself and the man she loved. What had the other people to do with it? Whom had she wronged? She flung herself on her bed. The tumult of brain and soul ran out in tears. Triumph, strength, color, hope, were flowing from her; but the figures of the dark spelled out words before her closed, unsleeping eyes—motives that she had obscured, meanings that had been dim. Whom had she wronged? One figure filled her inturned sight. The man she loved stood there, accusing her. The wrong she had done was between the two of them. To him she must answer. “What had she done?” the poor ghost seemed to ask. She had made him. For what? That question stared at her horribly. “For himself,” she tried to answer. It had been true in past years, but now it was inexplicably false. For herself, now. She would have hidden from the truth, but it was too quick for her. She lay still, seeing it all, flinching, but looking it in the face. She had had much to give him; and she had given it. She had helped him over his hard road—a road which, without her, he might have found too steep and narrow. Now she had come to the end. How did she know—she broke in passionately upon her reason—that if he wanted her, he no longer needed her? But something deeper than reason, deeper than passion, assured her of the dreary truth. The very years sundered them, and each succeeding year would widen the breach. She, in her prime, in the full power of her faculties and charm—ten years would find her old, years that would leave him young. After—what was there after that? If she could do no more, if she loved him, must she let him go? That was the bitterest! To step out of the way. To make herself forgotten! When she rose the east shone palely bright through her windows. She turned out the sickly lights, thrust back the curtains, and let the sharp, merciless morning fill the room. Seeing her reflection in the mirror, she seemed to face her actual self. Her cheeks were white, the shadows under her eyes bluish; from nostril to mouth the lines were long and hard. But it was easier to look this self in the face than the other of the night before. Here there was nothing hidden, no unknown horror at her back, no shadow to engulf her. Everything was clearly defined. Now that she was in the midst of the shadow, it was less black than gray; but she wondered whether fire would not have been a relief from that interminably dreary hue that infinitely surrounded her.