The Fatal Glove by Clara Augusta
page 89 of 169 (52%)
page 89 of 169 (52%)
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renounced.
She took off the rose-colored dress in which she had arrayed herself to meet him, and folded it away in a drawer of her wardrobe, together with every other adornment she had worn that night. They would always be to her painful reminders of that terrible season of anguish and despair. When all were in, she shut them away from her sight, turned the key upon them, and flung it far out of the window. Then she opened her writing desk, and took out all the little notes he had ever written to her, read them all over, and holding them one by one to the blaze of the lamp, watched them with a sort of stony calmness until they shrivelled and fell in ashes, black as her hopes, to the floor. Then his gifts; a few simple things. These she did not look at; she put them hastily into a box, sealed them up, and wrote his address on the cover. The last task was the hardest. She must write him a note, telling him that all was over between them. The gray light of a clouded morning found her making the effort. But for a long time her pen refused to move; her hand seemed powerless. She felt weak and helpless as a very infant. But it was done at last, and she read it over, wondering that she was alive to read it: "MR. ARCHER TREVLYN, SIR:--Yesterday afternoon, when I last saw you, I did not think that before twenty-four hours had elapsed I should be under the necessity of inditing to you this letter. Henceforth, you and I must be as strangers. Not all the wealth and influence of the universe could tempt me to become your wife, now that my eyes are opened. I renounce you utterly and entirely, and no word or argument of yours can change me. |
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