She didn’t trouble to open his letter until she was ready to go home.
Then, alone for a minute, she pulled it out and opened it, half sadly.
"No!" she cried suddenly. "No! I don’t believe it."
"What is it?" Devery called out from the next room.
"Nothing!" said Angelica, with stiff lips.
She hid the letter in her blouse in terror at the idea of its being
seen. Then she was forced to bring it out again, to read it, to make
sure.
Wanton, without a heart! You thing from the gutter, willing to give
your body to any man, while you keep your cold and poisonous heart
to yourself, for your own sordid aims! I swear to you I will never
let you destroy Eddie as you have me. It would be an outrage to
call you sister, to permit you to bear our name. I would rather
die. And I shall die. I have enlisted in the army. I shall soon be
sent to France, and I shall find Eddie there and tell him your
little history. Then I shall die. Nothing on earth can stop me. It
will be the supreme moment of my life when I tell Eddie, when I see
his face, and know that your shameless ends are frustrated--when I
know that you are really ruined.
"He won’t do it!" she tried to reassure herself. "He’s always making
threats. He wouldn’t really do anything that might harm himself."
But she knew that Vincent didn’t always act from self-interest. His
passions were very apt to overwhelm him, and malice was one of the
strongest of his passions. He would enjoy exquisitely telling the
wretched tale to Eddie.
For three months she didn’t draw a free breath. She tried to dismiss her
terror from her mind. She said to herself, resolutely: "Don’t borrow
trouble!" "Don’t worry about what may never happen!" "Don’t cross your
bridges before you come to them," and all sorts of tags from her
mother’s store. She faced Devery and Sillon every morning with the same
hardy good-humour. She was dutiful and severe at home, as had become her
custom, and to no living soul did she give the smallest hint of what she
was enduring.
Every time a letter came from Eddie, or if a mail were missed, she
expected the blow to fall, all her laboriously made plans to be
destroyed, her pride and dignity trampled underfoot, all her life
wrecked. She was utterly in the dark. She had no idea what was going on,
or what had already happened, and she could take no steps to gain
information. She could do nothing but wait.
Then came another letter from Vincent:
I am home on leave. That means that we shall very soon be going
over. Good-by, Angelica! I have a hard, bitterly hard task before
me. I must hurt Eddie and I must hurt you. As for me, there is
nothing before me but death. Deserted and ruined as I am, I long
for death. Your love was all that pleased me in life. With that
gone, there is nothing but a waste, bleak beyond endurance. I shall
only beg Eddie to forgive my vile treachery, as I beg you to
forgive my sins against you. Forget your presumptuous and wicked
dream of marrying that good man. That can never be. He will forgive
you, as he will forgive me, but he will never forget.
Good-by, Angelica. I give you to God!