“The worst is over,” she answered quietly, with that tearless agony which is so much more terrible than any outburst of grief. “Whatever happens, I can never go through the worst again. Once in the beginning he wanted to die. His great fear was that he might live too long, until it was too late to save himself. I made him wait then. I held him back by a promise.” So she had killed him, I thought. Then she went on steadily, after a minute, and I doubted again. “Thank God, it was easier for him than he feared it would be,” she murmured. No, it was not conceivable. He must have bribed one of the negroes. But who had stood by and watched without intercepting? Who had been in the room? Well, either way! “I will do all I can to help you,” I said. Her gaze did not waver. “There is so little that any one can do now,” she responded, as if she had not understood what I meant. Suddenly, without the warning of a sob, a cry of despair went out of her, as if it were torn from her breast. “He was my life,” she cried, “and I must go on!” So full of agony was the sound that it seemed to pass like a gust of wind over the broomsedge. I waited until the emptiness had opened and closed over it. Then I asked as quietly as I could: “What will you do now?” She collected herself with a shudder of pain. “As long as the old people live, I am tied here. I must bear it out to the end. When they die, I shall go away and find work. I am sending my boy to school. Doctor Carstairs will look after him, and he will help me when the time comes. While my boy needs me, there is no release.” While I listened to her, I knew that the question on my lips would never be uttered. I should always remain ignorant of the truth. The thing I feared most, standing there alone with her, was that some accident might solve the mystery before I could escape. My eyes left her face and wandered over the dead leaves at our feet. No, I had nothing to ask her. “Shall I come again?” That was all. She shook her head. “Not unless I send for you. If I need you, I will send for you,” she answered; but in my heart I knew that she would never send for me. I held out my hand, but she did not take it; and I felt that she meant me to understand, by her refusal, that she was beyond all consolation and all companionship. She was nearer to the bleak sky and the deserted fields than she was to her kind. As she turned away, the shawl slipped from her shoulders to the dead leaves over which she was walking; but she did not stoop to recover it, nor did I make a movement to follow her. Long after she had entered the house I stood there, gazing down on the garment that she had dropped. Then climbing into my buggy, I drove slowly across the field and into the woods. THE END End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shadowy Third and Other Stories, by Ellen Glasgow