Besides, she had read somewhere that though love was everything to a woman, men were different and could do quite well without it.

She went into the dressing-room, turned up the night lamp, and looked at her watch.

It was one o’clock.  At two a stage passed northward along a road on the farther side of Fairview.  She could easily make her few preparations in half an hour, walk to the nearest point on the route of the stage in time to stop it and get in, then while journeying on, decide what her next step should be.

She packed a hand-bag with such things as she deemed most essential, arrayed herself in a plain, dark woollen dress, with hat, veil, and gloves to match, threw a shawl over her arm, and was just turning to go, when a thought struck her.

“I ought to leave a note, of course; they always do.”

Sitting down at her writing-desk, she directed an envelope to her husband, then wrote on a card: 

“I am going away never to come back.  Don’t look for me, for it will be quite useless, as I shall manage so that you can never trace me.  It breaks my heart to leave you, my dear dear husband, for I love you better than life, but I know I have lost your love, and I want to rid you of the burden and annoyance of a hated wife.  So, farewell forever in this world, and nay you be very happy all your days.

“ZOE.”

Her tears fell fast as she wrote; she had to wipe them away again and again, and the card was so blotted and blistered by them that some of the words were scarcely legible, but there was not time to write another; so she put it in the envelope and laid it on the toilet table, where it would be sure to catch his eye.

Then taking up her shawl and satchel, she sent one tearful farewell glance around the room, and stole noiselessly down-stairs and out of the house by a side door.  It caught her dress in closing, but she was unaware of that for a moment, as she stood still on the step, remembering with a sudden pang, that was more than half regret, that the deed was done beyond recall, for the dead-latch was down, and she had no key with which to effect an entrance; she must go on now, whether she would or not.

She took a step forward, and found she was last; she could neither go on nor retreat.  Oh, dreadful to be caught there and her scheme at the same time baffled and revealed!

All at once she saw it in a new light.  “Oh, how angry, how very angry Edward would be!  What would he do and say to her?  Certainly, she had given him sufficient reason to deem it necessary to lock her up; for what right had she to go away to stay without his knowledge and consent? she who had taken a solemn vow—­in the presence of her dying father, too—­to love, honor and obey him as long as they both should live.  Oh, it would be too disgraceful to be caught so!”

She exerted all her strength in the effort to wrench herself free, even at the cost of tearing the dress and being obliged to travel with it unrepaired; but in vain; the material was too strong to give way, and she sank down on the step in a state of pitiable fright and despair.