He downstairs would never do that! She could not conceive of his
discussing her with any human being. Even though he should some day
desert her, he would never discuss her.
She had lived so secure in the sense of him thus standing with her
against the world, that it was the sheer withdrawal of his strength
from her to-night that had dealt her the cruelest blow. But now she
began to ask herself whether his protection _had_ failed her.
Could he have recognized the situation without rendering it
worse? Had he put his arms around her, might she not have--struck at
him? Had he laid a finger-weight of sympathy on her, would it not have
left a scar for life? Any words of his, would they not have rung in
her ears unceasingly? To pass it over was as though it had never
been--was not _that_ his protection?
She suddenly felt a desire to go down into the parlor. She kissed her
child in each room and she returned and kissed the doctor's
children--with memory of their mother; and then she descended by the
rear stairway.
She set her candle on the table, where earlier in the night she had
placed the lamp--near the manuscript--and she sat down and looked at
that remorsefully: she had ignored it when he placed it there.
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