Loramer swore at the case, and flung it into the fire. "Look here!" he cried. "Read that." He thrust it before his face. "Go on! Do you see? She was his wife when she married you. You're a free man!" A brutal exultation seized Lawrence. He shouted and laughed,--"Ha ha, ha ha ha! She's made fools of us both. You can have her, Harry, and welcome. I wish you joy. Ha ha, ha ha ha! She's the devil! she's the devil!" Loramer answered with harsh and scornful hilarity. Neither took any other notice of her sitting there, sunken together, crushed, hiding her face with her hands. Loramer turned away and ran tramping up the stairs, crammed his things into his valise, and came tramping down. Lawrence was backed against the post at the stair-foot. Loramer grasped his arm in passing. "By-bye! Come and see us," he called. He went out and banged the door, and they heard his hoarse laughter far down the quiet street. To Cora that laughter sounded like the knell at the end of all things. She sat as they had left her, and did not move for a long while after Lawrence too had gone out. Lawrence's mirthful humor passed very quickly. He grew full of a most delectable sense of freedom. It seemed as if a suffocating network had been tightening about his heart and, now that it had burst, the joy of the great and unexpected deliverance was more than his breast could hold. He could not breathe in-doors,--he wanted all the air he could get on the windy hills. He had been true; he had been true, he cried out to himself--in thought and deed he had been true! He tried to think: he could not think nor reason. A flood that he had never acknowledged, that he had hardly suspected, that he had set all his faculties to dam up and wall over, had been suddenly let loose and overwhelmed him. He could see no law or order in the world but in one place; to that place he must go, for light, for understanding! And his heart, like a bird set free, That tarries not early or late, But flies, over land, over sea, Straight, straight to its home, to its mate! All the night seemed to break out and sing. All the world yearned one way; the stars leaned out of their courses and looked, not at him, but south; the north wind went by him, crooning, hurrying, and the moon sailed southward past the ragged clouds. All his soul went out with them, and his body sickened to follow. He came home and changed his dress. It was late. He lighted no lamp; the ghostly moonlight streamed through the window, and a figure as still and ghost-like stood at the door.