Afterward, however, one or two letters found their way
into the sandal-wood box, bearing the Norwegian postmark.
They came seldomer than Elfrida expected. "_Enfin!_" she
said when the first arrived, and she felt her pulse beat
a little faster as she opened it. She read it eagerly,
with serious lips, thinking how fine he was, and with
what exquisite force he brought himself to her as he
wrote. "I must be a very exceptional person," she said
in her reverie afterward, "to have such things written
to me. I must--I _must!_" Then as she put the letter away
she reflected that she couldn't amuse herself with Kendal
without treachery to their artistic relationship; there
would be somehow an outrage in it. And she would not
amuse herself with him; she would sacrifice that, and be
quite frank and simple always. So that when it came to
pass--here Elfrida retired into a lower depth of
consciousness--there would be only a little pity and a
little pain, and no reproach or regret. There was a delay
in the arrival of the next letter which Elfrida felt to
be unaccountable, a delay of nearly three weeks. She took
it with an odd rush of feeling from the hand of the
housemaid who brought it up, and locked herself in alone
with it.
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