In the middle of the night Dahlia said:  “I found a letter from Edward when I came here.”

“Written—­Oh, base man that he is!” Rhoda could not control the impulse to cry it out.

“Written before,” said Dahlia, divining her at once.  “I read it; did not cry.  I have no tears.  Will you see it?  It is very short-enough; it said enough, and written before—­” She crumpled her fingers in Rhoda’s; Rhoda, to please her, saying “Yes,” she went to the pillow of the bed, and drew the letter from underneath.

“I know every word,” she said; “I should die if I repeated it.  ’My wife before heaven,’ it begins.  So, I was his wife.  I must have broken his heart—­broken my husband’s.”  Dahlia cast a fearful eye about her; her eyelids fluttered as from a savage sudden blow.  Hardening her mouth to utter defiant spite:  “My lover’s,” she cried.  “He is.  If he loves me and I love him, he is my lover, my lover, my lover!  Nothing shall stop me from saying it—­lover! and there is none to claim me but he.  Oh, loathsome!  What a serpent it is I’ve got round me!  And you tell me God put it.  Do you?  Answer that; for I want to know, and I don’t know where I am.  I am lost!  I am lost!  I want to get to my lover.  Tell me, Rhoda, you would curse me if I did.  And listen to me.  Let him open his arms to me, I go; I follow him as far as my feet will bear me.  I would go if it lightened from heaven.  If I saw up there the warning, ’You shall not!’ I would go.  But, look on me!” she smote contempt upon her bosom.  “He would not call to such a thing as me.  Me, now?  My skin is like a toad’s to him.  I’ve become like something in the dust.  I could hiss like adders.  I am quite impenitent.  I pray by my bedside, my head on my Bible, but I only say, ’Yes, yes; that’s done; that’s deserved, if there’s no mercy.’  Oh, if there is no mercy, that’s deserved!  I say so now.  But this is what I say, Rhoda (I see nothing but blackness when I pray), and I say, ‘Permit no worse!’ I say, ’Permit no worse, or take the consequences.’  He calls me his wife.  I am his wife.  And if—­” Dahlia fell to speechless panting; her mouth was open; she made motion with her hands; horror, as of a blasphemy struggling to her lips, kept her dumb, but the prompting passion was indomitable....  “Read it,” said her struggling voice; and Rhoda bent over the letter, reading and losing thought of each sentence as it passed.  To Dahlia, the vital words were visible like evanescent blue gravelights.  She saw them rolling through her sister’s mind; and just upon the conclusion, she gave out, as in a chaunt:  “And I who have sinned against my innocent darling, will ask her to pray with me that our future may be one, so that may make good to her what she has suffered, and to the God whom we worship, the offence I have committed.”

Rhoda looked up at the pale penetrating eyes.