"Richard," said I, my hand upon the latch, "you or I must leave."

He made no reply, but violently rising from his chair, grasped something
that lay near him, and tearing it to atoms, rushed by me without word or
look, and reaching the stairs, hastened out of sight.

Mechanically I sat down, and with sad, straining eyes surveyed the wreck
before me. My bridal wreath was shivered into fragments; its white
petals, like fruit blossoms caught in an untimely blast, sprinkled the
floor; my laces were in shreds like the riven mast of some shipwrecked
vessel.

Of course there was no sleep for me that night. When worn out with
thinking and weeping, I drew a large easy chair up to the door and sat
there as guard, listening, with the hope which moment after moment grew
fainter, that he would return and whisper in my willing ear a sweet
demand for pardon, some word in extenuation for his unseemly conduct; but
he came not.

Toward daybreak, I was aroused from the lethargy into which I had fallen
from sheer exhaustion by the sound of excited voices and hurried
movements in the room below. As these subsided and the gray morning
broke, I was startled by the sound of a horse's hoofs on the graveled
walk.

A fearful foreboding possessed me; what could it mean? Somebody was
riding away; who was it? Through the gate and down the avenue I heard the
galloping steed.

I dragged my nerveless limbs to the window and peered forth. Clear