Perhaps, she pondered heavily, he, too, writhed beneath this avalanche of pain; perhaps remorse and the consciousness of the anguish he had entailed upon them both tore and lacerated him.  He had gone away at last, out of her life, back to the home and the ties that were hateful to him.  He had gone away to take up his share of their joint burden, and he would be merciful, and never cross her path again.

But would he?  The girl quivered, her hand sought the pocket of her dress, and her eyes glanced forlornly around the room like the eyes of a hunted creature.  She recalled something that the morning’s post had brought her—­something that had seemed sweet and fair, something that had caused her pulses to thrill, all day, with exultant happiness.

Only a New Year card; a graceful white-fringed thing, showing a handful of blue forget-me-nots, thrown carelessly beside an old anchor on a bit of golden sand.  Pocahontas laid it on her lap and gazed at it with strained, tearless eyes, and read anew its sweet message of remembrance and hope.  She had been startled by Thorne’s sudden departure, but had quietly accepted the message of explanation and farewell sent her by Blanche; she trusted him too implicitly to doubt that what he did was best and wisest, and was happy in the knowledge that he would return.

How long ago it appeared to her already, since this pretty card had come; she looked at it strangely, with eyes in which there was longing, renunciation, and a wild hopelessness of love.  She must not keep it; it was not hers; it belonged of right to that other—­the woman who was his wife.  No, she must not keep it—­the beautiful, tender thing.  With steady hand, but blanched, quivering lips, she reached over and made a little grave among the dying embers, in which a sullen spark glowed like baleful eye.  Quietly, with the feeling that she was burying all of youth and hope and joy her life would ever know, she kissed the card with dumb, clinging, passionate kisses, and then with a low, dry sob, covered it from sight.

As she raised herself up, her eyes fell on the little box lying on her desk in which she had placed the fragments of the cup they had broken between them—­the cup that her old play-fellow had used on that last evening.  With the impulse of habit and association, her mind turned wearily to Jim.  He was so true; he had never failed her.  Had he suffered as she was suffering?  Poor Jim!  Was this ceaseless, gnawing agony that had usurped her life no stranger to his?  If so—­God pity him!—­and her!

CHAPTER XIV.