Page:The Yellow Book - 08.djvu/45

 A letter was brought up to her room. She knew the flowing commercial hand, and broke the envelope without emotion. Two sheets—three sheets—and a half. But what was all this? "Despair thoughts of self-destruction  ignoble publicity  practical ruin  impossible  despise and forget  Dante's hell  deeper than ever plummet sounded  forever So again he had deceived her! He must have known that the widow was dangerous; his reticence was mere shuffling. His behaviour to that other woman had perhaps exceeded in baseness his treatment of herself; else, how could he be so sure that a jury would give her "ruinous damages"? Or was it all a mere illustration of a man's villainy? Why should not she also sue for damages? Why not? Why not?

The three months that followed were a time of graver peril, of darker crisis, than Rosamund, with all her slip-slop experiences, had ever known. An observer adequately supplied with facts, psychological and material, would more than once have felt that it depended on the mere toss of a coin whether she kept or lost her social respectability. She sounded all the depths possible to such a mind and heart—save only that from which there could have been no redemption. A saving memory lived within her, and at length, in the yellow gloom of a November morning—her tarnished, draggle-tailed finery thrown aside for the garb she had worn in lowliness—Rosamund betook herself to Forest Hill. The house of the Hallidays looked just as usual. She slunk up to the door, rang the bell, and waited in fear of a strange face. There appeared Mrs. Halliday herself. The surprised but friendly smile at once proved her forgiveness of Rosamund's desertion. She had written, indeed, with calm good sense, hoping only that all would be well.

"Let me see you alone, Mrs. Halliday.—How glad I am to sit in this room again! Who is helping you now?"