He had been obliged to acquiesce; and I
took Ideala his letter; but she, womanlike, though nothing would have
altered her decision, was not at first satisfied with his compliance.
It seemed to her too ready; and that made her doubt if she might not
have been to blame after all. They wrote to each other once again, and
when she received his last letter, she spoke to me about it.
"He must have seen it as you do from the first, for he has said no word
to alter my determination--rather the contrary," she told me. "We are
not to meet again, nor to correspond; and doubtless it is a relief to
him to have the matter settled in this way; but one thing puzzles me.
In my last letter I bade him good-bye, adding 'since that is what you
wish,' and he has replied: 'I never said I wished it; will you remember
that?' I do remember it, and it comforts me; but why?"
I knew that Lorrimer had said little in order to make her sacrifice as
easy for her as possible; and I was silent, too, for the same reason. I
thought if she felt herself to blame, her pride would come to the
rescue, and make her loss appear rather inevitable than voluntary.
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