Before he awoke she must be gone--out of the house--anywhere--to save
herself from living any longer with him. His indifference in the
presence of her suffering; his pitiless withdrawal from her of touch
and glance and speech as she had gone down into that darkest of life's
valleys; his will of iron that since she had insisted upon knowing the
whole truth, know it she should: all this left her wounded and stunned
as by an incredible blow, and she was acting first from the instinct
of removing herself beyond the reach of further humiliation and
brutality.
Instinctively she took off her wedding ring and laid it on his dresser
beside his watch: he would find it there in the morning and he could
dispose of it. Then she changed her dress for the plainest heavy one
and put on heavy walking shoes. She packed into a handbag a few
necessary things with some heirlooms of her own. Among the latter was
a case of family jewels; and as she opened it, her eyes fell upon her
mother's thin wedding ring and with quick reverence she slipped that
on and kissed it bitterly. She lifted out also her mother's locket
containing a miniature daguerreotype of her father and dutifully fed
her eyes on that.
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