Yes, and she was proud to receive them!--proud that he thought so much of her opinion and cared so much for her sympathy. But _why_ did he write to her, so constantly, so intimately?--what was the real motive of it all?
At last, Nelly asked herself the question. It was fatal of course. So long as no question is asked of Lohengrin--who, what, and whence he is--the spell holds, the story moves. But examine it, as we all know, and the vision fades, the gleam is gone.
She passed rapidly, and almost with terror, into a misery of remorse. What had she been doing with this kindest and best of men? Allowing him to suppose that after a little while she would be quite ready to forget George and be his wife? That threw her into a fit of helpless crying. The tears ran down her cheeks as she moved to and fro. Her George!--falling out there, in that ghastly No Man's Land, dying out there, alone, with no one to help, and quiet now in his unknown grave. And after little more than a year she was to forget him, and be rich and happy with a new lover--a new husband?
She seemed to herself the basest of women. Base towards George--and towards Farrell--both! What could she do?--what must she do? Oh, she must go away--she must break it all off! And looking despairingly round the room, which only an hour before had seemed to her so dear and familiar, she tried to imagine herself in exile from all it represented, cut off from Farrell and from Cicely, left only to her own weak self.
But she must--she _must_! That very evening she must speak to Willy--she must have it out. Of course he would urge her to stay there--he would promise to go away--and leave her alone. But that would be too mean, too ungrateful. She couldn't banish him from this spot that he loved, where he snatched his few hours--always now growing fewer--of rest and pleasure. No, she must just depart. Without telling him? Without warning? Her will failed her.
She got out her table, with its knitting, and its bundles of prepared work which had arrived that morning from the workroom, and began upon one of them mechanically. But she was more and more weighed down by a sense of catastrophe--which was also a sense of passionate shame. Why, she was George's wife, still!--his _wife_--for who could _know_, for certain, that he was dead? That was what the law meant. _Seven years_!