Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/545

Rh with closed eyes, in a mental darkness torn by sudden ﬂashes of memory. In one of these ﬂashes a phrase of Amherst’s stood out—a word spoken at Westmore, on the day of the opening of the Emergency Hospital, about a good-looking young man who had called to see her. She remembered Amherst’s boyish burst of jealousy, his sudden relief at the thought that the visitor might have been Wyant. And no doubt it was Wyant—“Wyant who had come to Hanaford to threaten her, and who, bafﬂed by her non-arrival, or for some other unexplained reason, had left again without carrying out his purpose.

It was dreadful to think by how slight a chance her ﬁrst draught of happiness had escaped that drop of poison; yet, when she understood, her inward cry was: “If it had happened, my dearest need not have suffered!”… Already she was feeling Amherst’s pain more than her own, understanding that it was harder to bear than hers because it was at war with all the reﬂective part of his nature.

As she lay there, her face pressed into the cushions, she heard a sound through the silent house—the opening and closing of the outer door. She turned cold, and lay listening With strained ears.… Yes; now there was a step on the stairs—her husband’s step! She heard him turn into his own room. The throbs of her heart almost deafened her—she only distinguished [ 529 ]