"
She swallowed the medicine I brought her in nervous gulps, the tears
running down her face as they might have done down a child's, but she
would not let me do anything for her, insisting only that she wanted
to be quiet. Seeing it was best to leave her, I went to my room and
locked the door, and for hours I fought the hardest fight of my life.
The one weapon she knew she could use effectively, she had used. If
she needed me I could not leave her, but her complete self-reliance
made it difficult to feel that any one was necessary to her. I was
indignant at the way she had treated me. I was not a child to be
disposed of, and yet of my future she was disposing as though it were
a thing that could be tied to a string, and untied at will. Were she
well and strong, I would take matters in my own hands and make the
break. Surely I could do something! I had no earning capacity, but
other women had made their way, and I could make mine. If she were
perfectly well--
But she was not well. Through those first hours, and through most of
the hours of the night that followed, the knowledge of the insidious
disease that was hers was the high, hard wall against which I struck
at every turn of thought, at every possibility at which I grasped,
and in the dawn of a new day I knew I must not go away.
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