On the way
she stopped her cab at a book-shop, and emerged from it
laden with literature. She knew what would interest Owen,
and what he was likely to have read, and she had made her
choice among the newest publications with the promptness of
a discriminating reader. But on the way back to the hotel
she was overcome by the irony of adding this mental panacea
to the other. There was something grotesque and almost
mocking in the idea of offering a judicious selection of
literature to a man setting out on such a journey. "He
knows...he knows..." she kept on repeating; and giving the
porter the parcel from the chemist's she drove away without
leaving the books.
She went to her apartment, whither her maid had preceded
her. There was a fire in the drawing-room and the tea-table
stood ready by the hearth. The stormy rain beat against the
uncurtained windows, and she thought of Owen, who would soon
be driving through it to the station, alone with his bitter
thoughts. She had been proud of the fact that he had always
sought her help in difficult hours; and now, in the most
difficult of all, she was the one being to whom he could not
turn. Between them, henceforth, there would always be the
wall of an insurmountable silence...She strained her aching
thoughts to guess how the truth had come to him. Had he seen
the girl, and had she told him? Instinctively, Anna rejected
this conjecture.
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