“It is impossible that we should ever live together again, after all that has transpired,” Ethelyn said, as she stood beside her trunk and involuntarily folded up a garment and laid it on the bottom.

She had reached a decision, and her face grew whiter, stonier, as she made haste to act upon it.  Every article which Richard had bought was laid aside and put away in the drawers and bureaus she would never see again.  These were not numerous, for her bridal trousseau had been so extensive that but few demands had been made upon her husband’s purse for dress, and Ethelyn felt glad that it was so.  It did not take long to put them away, or very long to pack the trunk, and then Ethie sat down to think “what next?”

Only a few days before a Mr. Bailey, who boarded in the house, and whose daughter was taking music lessons, had tried to purchase her piano, telling her that so fine a player as herself ought to have one with a longer keyboard.  Ethie had thought so herself, wishing sometimes that she had a larger instrument, which was better adapted to the present style of music, but she could not bring herself to part with Aunt Barbara’s present.  Now, however, the case was different.  Money she must have, and as she scorned to take it from the bank, where her check was always honored, she would sell her piano.  It was hers to do with as she liked, and when Mr. Bailey passed her door at dinner time he was asked to step in and reconsider the matter.  She had changed her mind, she said.  She was willing to sell it now; there was such a superb affair down at Shumway’s Music Room.  Had Mr. Bailey seen it?

Ethie’s voice was not quite steady, for she was not accustomed to deception of this kind, and the first step was hard.  But Mr. Bailey was not at all suspicious, and concluded the bargain at once; and two hours later Ethie’s piano was standing between the south windows of Mrs. Bailey’s apartment, and Ethie, in her own room, was counting a roll of three hundred dollars, and deciding how far it would go.

“There’s my pearls,” she said, “if worst comes to worst I can sell them and my diamond ring.”

She did not mean Daisy’s ring.  She would not barter that, or take it with her, either.  Daisy never intended it for a runaway wife, and Ethelyn must leave it where Richard would find it when he came back and found her gone.  And then as Ethie in her anger exulted over Richard’s surprise and possible sorrow when he found himself deserted, some demon from the pit whispered in her ear, “Give him back the wedding ring.  Leave that for him, too, and so remove every tie which once bound you to him.”

It was hard to put off Daisy’s ring, and Ethelyn paused and reflected as the clear stone seemed to reflect the fair, innocent face hanging on the walls at Olney.  But Ethie argued that she had no right to it, and so the dead girl’s ring was laid aside, and then the trembling fingers fluttered about the plain gold band bearing the date of her marriage.  But when she essayed to remove that, too, blood-red circles danced before her eyes, and such a terror seized her that her hands dropped powerless into her lap and the ring remained in its place.