What good to me were my freedom and riches?  As well be married or dead.  I never knew before how much I had been looking forward to seeing Antony again.  I never realized how, instinctively, for months my soul had been living in the background on this thought.

And now it was all finished.  I must not be a coward.  Oh, how I wished again for grandmamma’s spirit!  This time I must tear the whole thing out of my life at once.

To go on caring for another woman’s lover was beneath contempt.

When I should have recovered a little, I would go back to England and mix with the world, and gradually forget, and eventually marry the Duke.  Fortunately, as the Marquis said, a vingt ans one could never be sure of love lasting.  So probably I should soon be cured, and there would be compensation in being an English duchess.  It was a great position, as Miss Corrisande K. Trumpet had said.  And all men make good enough husbands if you have control of the dollars, I remember she added.

Well, I should have control of the dollars.  So we should see.

The Duke was a gentleman, too, and intelligent, agreeable, and had liberal views.  His Duchess might eventually have a “friend,” like the rest, he had said.  So, no doubt, I should be able to acquire the habit of thus amusing myself.  Why should I hesitate, when the best and the noblest gave me examples?

All my ideas on those subjects had fallen to pieces like a pack of cards.

“‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you die.’”

Well, I had never eaten or drunk of happiness yet, and now my heart was dead.  So what was the good of it all, anyway? A quoi bon? and again, a quoi bon?  That is what the trees said to me when they tired of calling for Antony.

I breakfasted and lunched and dined and walked miles every day.  I loathed my food.  I hated the faces of the people who stared at me.  I fear I even snapped at McGreggor.  Roy was my only comfort.

But gradually the beauty and peace of the pine-forests soothed me.  Better thoughts came.  I said to myself:  “Enough.  Now you will go home and face life.  At least you can try to do some good in the world, and with your great wealth make some poor creatures happy.  You have behaved according to your own idea of gratitude and honor.  No one asked you to do it; therefore, why sit there and growl at fate?  Have courage to carry the thing through.  No more contemptible repinings.”

* * * * *

Far away up the hills there is a path that leads to an open space—­a tiny peep out over the tree-tops, sheer precipices below.  I would go there for the last time, and to-morrow return to England.

The climb was steep.  I was a little out of breath, and leaned on the stone ledge to rest myself when I arrived at the top.  I was quite alone.

The knife on my chatelaine caught in the lichen and dragged at the chain.  It angered me.  I took it off the twisted ring and looked at it.