For a second
she seemed irresolute, and only a second.
"It must be done--it is right. I ought to have done it before--Good-by
forever."
Good-by to what--or to whom?
All that the fire revealed, as she laid the packet on it, stirring it down
into a red hollow, so that not a flickering fragment should be left
unconsumed, were four letters--only four--written on dainty paper, in a
man's hand, sealed with a man's large heraldic seal. When they were
mere dust, Christian rose.
"It is over now--quite over. In the whole world there is nobody to
believe in--except him. He is very good, and he loves me. I was right
to marry him--yes, quite right."
She repeated this more than once, as if compelling herself to
acknowledge it, and then paused.
Christian was not exactly a religious woman--that is, she had lived
among such utterly irreligious people, that whatever she thought or felt
upon these subjects had to be kept entirely to herself--but she was of a
religious nature. She said her prayers duly, and she had one habit--or
superstition, some might sneeringly call it--that the last thing before she
went on a journey she always opened her Bible; read a verse or two,
and knelt down, if only to say, "God, take care of me, and bring me
safe back again;" petitions that in many a wretched compelled
wandering were not so uncalled for as some might suppose.
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