She had read it while she drove towards the depot, and when she dismissed the carriage it was with a vague idea of flying to Lockhaven, and brushing all this cobweb of unreason away, and claiming her right to take her place at her husband's side.

But as she sat in the station, waiting, every sentence of the letter began to burn into her heart, and she slowly realized that she could not go back.

The long day passed, and the people, coming and going, looked curiously at her; one kindly woman, seeing the agony in her white face, came up and asked her if she were ill, and could she help her?
Helen stared at her like a person in a dream, and shook her head.

Then, in a numb sort of way, she began to understand that she must go back to Ashurst.

She did not notice that it had begun to rain, or think of a carriage, but plodded, half blind and dazed, over the country road to her old home, sometimes sitting down, not so much to rest as to take the letter from its envelope again and read it.
She looked at it now, with a sudden gasp of pain; it was as though a dagger had been turned in a wound.