But, strangest of all, and yet so vivid that even its strangeness
couldn't prevent her being aware of it, was a perfectly enormous relief.
The thing which, when she had first faced it as the only thoroughfare to
the real life she so passionately wanted, had seemed such a veritable
nightmare, was an accomplished fact. The week of acute agony she had
lived through while she was forcing her sudden resolution on Rodney had
been all but unendurable with the enforced contemplation of the moment
of parting which it brought so relentlessly nearer. There had been a
terror, too, lest when the moment actually came, she couldn't do it.
Well, and now it had come and gone! The surgery of the thing was over.
The nerves and sinews were cut. The thing was done. The girl who stood
there now in her three-dollar room was free; had won a fresh blank page
to write the characters of her life upon.
She felt a little guilty about this. What heartless sort of a monster
must she be to feel--why, actually happy, at a moment like this? She
ought to be prone on the bed, her face buried in the musty pillow,
sobbing her heart out.
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