The old artist went over to her, and placed a hand gently on her arm.
"I told him only what I had to; the rest, I fear, he guessed." She drew back from him quickly.
"It was better for you both, I know now," he said, with his hand still touching her rigid arm. "And some day I think you will both forgive me for it!"
She turned from him where he stood, and groped her way blindly down the long stairs, her brain reeling with the mockery of it all, while her heart still cried blindly out for the man who had crowned her with his love, as she frantically told herself that she must still find him, and that in some devious way it might not yet be too late.
We dared so long, and doubted not, The saddest is that you should fail Now all the battle has been fought, And doubt, or daring, no avail!
It is the ebb-tide of love that shows the mud-flats of the soul.--"The Silver Poppy."
For two days Cordelia drove irrationally up and down beneath the windows of Hartley's apartments, hiding timorously back in the shadows of the curtained brougham, yet every alert moment watching the crowded sidewalks and carriage-lined drive, half-hoping that through some vague operation of the irenics of affection she might still find a way back to him, and to the life she had so miserably lost.
Then, as the second day of her tacit search wore fruitlessly on, she once more grew audacious with the last courage of desperation. Driving briskly up to the apartment-house which had been the pivot of her dreary two-days' reconnaissance, she alighted and peremptorily asked if she might see the rooms recently occupied by Mr. Hartley.
The clerk glanced at her sharply, for a moment not recognizing the white, weary-looking face under its heavy veil but partly caught up. His hesitation was only momentary, for, immediately he had placed the familiar, flute-like contralto voice, he obsequiously called over a brass-buttoned attendant.
"Mr. Hartley, by the way, releases his rooms to-morrow," amiably commented the clerk, as he reached for the keys.
"Yes, I know!" murmured Cordelia, impassively, yet with a quailing heart, struggling to hide the tremor of dull fear that was shaking her. She saw that she must act with decision.
"I wonder," she went on, evenly, "if Mr. Hartley explained to you my intention of occupying these rooms once more--until the lease runs out, at any rate?"