She knew that she could have made Jim hers long ago with a little
less severity, a less harsh rebuff. The Church condemned her for
openly divorcing her husband. She might have kept him on the leash
and carried on the affair with Jim that Cheever accused her of if
Jim had been complacent and stealthy. Or, she might have kept Jim
at her heels till she was rid of Cheever and then have married him.
She would have saved him at least from floundering through the marsh
where that Kedzie-o'-the-wisp had led him to ultimate disaster.
And now that she had taken stock of her past and put it into the
fire, she felt strangely exiled. She had no past, no present, and
a future all hazy. Her loneliness was complete. She had to talk
to some one, and she telephoned to Jim Dyckman, making her good-bys
an excuse.
It was the first time he had been permitted to hear her voice for
weeks, and the lonely joy that cried out in his greeting brought
warm tears to her dull, dry eyes.
He heard her weeping and he demanded the right to come to see her.
She refused him and cut off his plea, hoping that he would come,
anyway, and waiting tremulously till the door-bell rang with a
forgotten thrill of a caller, a lover calling.
Her maid, who brought her Jim's name, begged with her eyes that
he should not be turned away again. Charity nodded and prinked
a little and went down-stairs into Jim's arms.
He took her there as if she belonged there and she felt that she
did, though she protested, feebly:
"You are not unmarried yet.
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