Page:Love's trilogy.djvu/94

 Was it imagination, or was it fancy, but I seemed to hear a mocking, threatening laugh. Then the figure disappeared along the road.

My bright spring mood had vanished. I could not get out of my thoughts the pale and tortured face with its impotent, almost absurd, defiance, and all day long sounded in my ears the bitter laugh of humiliation, the laugh I heard ... for I must have heard it.

What a hard and brutal man he must be. Yet, I should not have behaved in such an undignified way in her place. If his infatuation had passed, surely she must have noticed it. Even if he had not wished to speak out, she ought to have forced him to tell her the truth. This I know, that if the day should come when I feel he is growing tired, that moment I shall leave him. I shall never allow him to feel our relationship a bore. I am too proud to live on his mercy, and pity. Not even a complaint shall he hear. I will disappear from his life and nothing shall ever remind him of me.

I am glad I am not going to see him again tonight. I have been so miserable all day, I fear I should have burst into tears.

And I, who ought to surprise him by being such a bright and happy girl. I must try to sleep away all the ugly thoughts. 26$th$

HIS morning, two vans carried away our neighbour's furniture, and he followed in a cab. Just before he was going to leave, he came