Page:Life's little ironies (1894).pdf/120

She walked mechanically homeward without calling afly. Entering, she could not bear the silence of the house, and went up in the dark to where Anna had slept, where she remained thinking awhile. She then returned to the drawing-room, and not knowing what she did, crouched down upon the floor.

“I have ruined him!” she kept repeating-—“I have ruined him; because I would not deal treacherously towards her!”

In the course of half an hoor a figure opened the door of the apartment.

“ Ah—who’s that ?” she said, starting up, for it was dark.

“Your husband. Who should it be?” said the worthy merchant,

“ Ah—my husband!—I forget I had a husband!” ahe whispered to herself.

“I missed you at the station,” he continued. “Did you see Anna safely tied up? I hope so, for ‘twas time.”

“'Yes—Anna is married.”

Simultaneously with Edith’s journey home, Anna and her hasband were sitting at the opposite windows of a second-class carriage which sped along to Knollsea. In his hand was a pocket-book full of creased sheets closely written over. Unfolding them one after another he read them in silence and sighed.

“What are you doing, dear Charles?” she said, timidly, from the other window, avd drew nearer to him as if he were a god,

" Reading over all those sweet letters to me signed

'Anna,’ "he replied, with dreary reaignation.