objected that, at that hour, no time would be gained. "I want
it out of the house," she insisted: and waited sternly by the
desk, in her dressing-gown, till he had performed the errand.

As she re-entered her room, the disordered writing-table struck
her; and she remembered the lawyer's injunction to take a copy
of her letter. A copy to be filed away with the documents in
"Lansing versus Lansing!" She burst out laughing at the idea.
What were lawyers made of, she wondered? Didn't the man guess,
by the mere look in her eyes and the sound of her voice, that
she would never, as long as she lived, forget a word of that
letter--that night after night she would lie down, as she was
lying down to-night, to stare wide-eyed for hours into the
darkness, while a voice in her brain monotonously hammered out:
"Nick dear, it was July when you left me ..." and so on, word
after word, down to the last fatal syllable?



XXII

STREFFORD was leaving for England.

Once assured that Susy had taken the first step toward freeing
herself, he frankly regarded her as his affianced wife, and
could see no reason for further mystery. She understood his
impatience to have their plans settled; it would protect him
from the formidable menace of the marriageable, and cause
people, as he said, to stop meddling. Now that the novelty of
his situation was wearing off, his natural indolence reasserted