She had told him that she did not love him, and had demanded a divorce from him. She must never contradict those words, or try to undo that act. She knew that she was weak, but she knew that she had courage enough to stand to this resolution. He should never know how, slowly at first, and afterward with increasing force and swiftness, the knowledge of her mistake had come to her. For a while she had fought it off with furious denial. She had argued and talked with herself, and recalled past feelings of resentment, anger, and desperate antagonism, to prove to herself that she had been right in vowing that she did not love him; but in the end nothing had availed. Long before their paths had met again she had known that she was wrong; that she had made a hideous mistake of her life; and that, with all the force, fire, energy, and passion of her heart, she loved the man whom she had repudiated. But, even with this knowledge, she might have borne it, she might have lived and died without making a sign, if only she had not seen him again! Now, however, that she had seen him, heard him, felt the atmosphere of his presence about her, felt his thoughts of her surrounding her, and felt through all her pulses his touch upon her hand, what was she to do? How was she to stumble on, and pretend to fight, when a mere look from his eyes made her sword-arm nerveless? Oh, she _must_ give way this once, she felt, and shed a few of those millions of pent-up tears! Now that she was here in the very room that he had slept in yesterday, and would come back to to-morrow, she must let the spirit of love and grief within her have its way. Perhaps some remnant of it might linger after she was gone, and speak to his heart from hers. As her mind formed this idea, she sprang to her feet. Was she losing control of herself? Was her mind weakening or deserting her? How had she so forgotten herself as to have this thought, which was in its nature a wish? She knew that in her proper senses she would choose to die a death of torture rather than that he should have one suspicion of her feeling for him. No, no! She passionately recanted that moment’s impulsive wish as she took her candle, and, more tranquil now, went over and stood by his bed. It was not swathed in a great cretonne cover, as French beds are apt to be, but was made in the American fashion, with smooth white coverlet and fair linen sheets. Still holding the candle in her hand, she sank on her knees beside this bed, and closed her eyes, and moved her lips in prayer. Her long hair was hanging in a thick mass down her back. The white gown that she wore was almost as plain as a religious habit, and she looked, with her taper burning in front of her, like a nun before a shrine.