Ethelyn's Mistake

Ethie's voice was not quite steady, for she was not accustomed to

deception of this kind, and the first step was hard. But Mr. Bailey was

not at all suspicious, and concluded the bargain at once; and two hours

later Ethie's piano was standing between the south windows of Mrs.

Bailey's apartment, and Ethie, in her own room, was counting a roll of

three hundred dollars, and deciding how far it would go.

"There's my pearls," she said, "if worst comes to worst I can sell them

and my diamond ring."

She did not mean Daisy's ring. She would not barter that, or take it

with her, either. Daisy never intended it for a runaway wife, and

Ethelyn must leave it where Richard would find it when he came back and

found her gone. And then as Ethie in her anger exulted over Richard's

surprise and possible sorrow when he found himself deserted, some demon

from the pit whispered in her ear, "Give him back the wedding ring.

Leave that for him, too, and so remove every tie which once bound you

to him."

It was hard to put off Daisy's ring, and Ethelyn paused and reflected as

the clear stone seemed to reflect the fair, innocent face hanging on the

walls at Olney. But Ethie argued that she had no right to it, and so the

dead girl's ring was laid aside, and then the trembling fingers

fluttered about the plain gold band bearing the date of her marriage.

But when she essayed to remove that, too, blood-red circles danced

before her eyes, and such a terror seized her that her hands dropped

powerless into her lap and the ring remained in its place.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and the cars for Olney left at

seven. She was going that way as far as Milford, where she could take

another route to the East. She would thus throw Richard off the track if

he tried to follow her, and also avoid immediate remark in the hotel.

They would think it quite natural that in her husband's absence she

should go for a few days to Olney, she reasoned; and they did think so

in the office when at six she asked that her trunk be taken to the

station. Her rooms were all in order. She had made them so herself,

sweeping and dusting, and even leaving Richard's dressing-gown and

slippers by the chair where he usually sat the evenings he was at home.

The vacancy left by the piano would strike him at once, she knew, and so

she moved a tall bookcase up there, and put a sofa where the bookcase

had been, and a large chair where the sofa had been, and pushed the

center table into the large chair's place; and then her work was

done--the last she would ever do in that room, or for Richard either.

The last of everything is sad, and Ethie felt a thrill of pain as she

whispered to herself, "It is the last, last time," and then thought of

the outer world which lay all unknown before her. She would not allow

herself to think, lest her courage should give way, and tried, by

dwelling continually upon Richard's cruel words, to steel her heart

against the good impulses which were beginning to suggest that what she

was doing might not, after all, be the wisest course. What would the

world say?--and dear Aunt Barbara, too? How it would wring her heart

when she heard the end to which her darling had come! And Andy--simple,

conscientious, praying Andy--Ethie's heart came up in her throat when

she thought of him and his grief at her desertion.