...
Sometimes she got up and walked about; sometimes sat down, her elbows
on her knees, her forehead in her hands, one foot tapping, tapping,
tapping. Her first idea was flight: she must not wait for Lloyd; she
must take David and go at once. By to-morrow, everybody would know.
She would write Lloyd that she would await him in Philadelphia. "I
will go to a hotel" she told herself. Of course, it was possible that
Sam would keep his knowledge to himself, as his grandfather had done,
but it was not probable. And even if he did, his knowledge made the
place absolutely unendurable to her; she could not bear it for a day--
for an hour! Yes; she must get off by tomorrow night; and--
Suddenly, into the midst of this horrible personal alarm, came, like
an echo, Sam's last words. The memory of them was so clear that it was
almost as if he uttered them aloud at her side: "Well; I have had
enough of it." Enough of what? Of loving her? Ah, yes; he was cured
now of all that. But was that what he meant? "So this is life.... I
have had enough of it."
Helena Richie leaped to her feet. It seemed to her as if all her blood
was flowing slowly back to her heart. There was no pain now in those
nail-marks; there was no pain in her crushed humiliation. _"I have
had enough of it."..._
Good God! She caught her skirts up in her hand and flew down the steps
and out into the garden.
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