She could not weep for a lie; she could only
wonder how it should ever have masqueraded as the holy verities.
She would not rehearse her husband's faults, and the great disaster of
the revelation of his true character that made the few short years she
had passed with him stretch out in retrospect like a long and miserable
life. It was over now, and her friends could not disguise their
estimation of the end as a blessed release. But peace had not come with
it. She was not impervious to remorse, regret, humiliation, for her
course. The sight of Bayne, the sound of his voice, had poignantly
revived the past, and if she had suffered woeful straits from wanton
cruelty, she could not deny to herself that she had been consciously,
carelessly, and causelessly cruel. In withdrawing herself to the library
she had thwarted certain feints of Mrs. Briscoe's designed to throw them
together in her hope of their reconciliation. Lillian had become very
definitely aware that this result was far alien to any expectation on
Bayne's part, and her cheeks burned with humiliation that she should for
one moment, with flattered vanity and a strange thrill about her heart,
have inclined to Mrs.
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