Laura was in the room below.  A servant brought in some letters, and she glanced them over.  One was the note from herself to Maumbry, informing him that she was unable to endure life with him any longer and was about to elope with Vannicock.  Having read the letter she took it upstairs to where the dead man was, and slipped it into his coffin.  The next day she buried him.

 

She was now free.

 

She shut up his house at Durnover Cross and returned to her lodgings³ at Creston.  Soon she had a letter from Vannicock, and six weeks after her husband’s death her lover came to see her.

 

‘I forgot to give you back this—that night,’ he said presently, handing her the little bag she had taken as her whole luggage when leaving.

 

Laura received it and absently shook it out.  There fell upon the carpet her brush, comb, slippers⁴, nightdress, and other simple necessaries for a journey.  They had an intolerably ghastly look now, and she tried to cover them.

 

‘I can now,’ he said, ‘ask you to belong to me legally—when a proper interval⁵ has gone—instead of as we meant.’

 

There was languor⁶ in his utterance⁷, hinting at a possibility that it was perfunctorily made.  Laura picked up her articles, answering that he certainly could so ask her—she was free.  Yet not her expression either could be called an ardent⁸ response.  Then she blinked more and more quickly and put her handkerchief to her face.  She was weeping violently.

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