And that was Wednesday! She had been struck stupid by his words. She had heard him no further, though he did say other things; she had watched him go, unable to call him back.
It relieved Ann not at all to tell herself that it was this for which she had waited, had worried, had restrained herself throughout these weeks; that she had come West to find her husband and that she was about to join him, knowing that he was strengthened, that he had been lifted up to a physical and mental level where she might guide him, aid him in the fight which must continue.
That knowledge was no solace. It was that for which she had outwardly waited, but it was that against which she inwardly recoiled. She realized this truth now, and conscience cried back that it must not be so, that she must stifle that feeling of revulsion, that she must welcome her husband, eagerly, gladly. And it went on to accuse ... that conscience; it shamed her because she had been held to the breast of another man; it scorned her because she had drawn herself closer to him with her own arms; it taunted her bitterly because she could not readily agree with her older self that in the doing she had sinned, because to her slowly opening eyes that moment had seemed the most beautiful interval of her life!
A peculiar difference in the vivacity of her impressions had been asserting itself. The memory of the runaway had faded. Her picture of the moment when she strained her body against Bayard's was not so clear as it had been an hour before, though the thrill, the great joy of it, still remained to mingle with those other thoughts and emotions which confused her. The last great impression of the day, though--Bayard's solemn announcement of his completed task--grew more sharply defined, more outstanding, more important as the moments passed, because its eventuality was a thing before which she felt powerless in the face of her conscience, before which all this other must be forgotten, before which this new rebellious Ann must give way to the old long-suffering, submissive wife. She felt as though she had known her moment of beauty and that it had gone, leaving her not even a sweet memory; for her grimmer self whispered that that brief span of time had been vile, unchaste. And yet, in the next moment, her strength had rallied and she was fighting against the influence of tradition, against blind precedents.