Another Woman's House by Mignon G. Eberhart Page A

it had come the self-anger and wave of bitter self-reproach left her. “I was wrong to lash out at you like that, Richard.”
    His hold on her shoulders relaxed. She wondered briefly whether or not he had stopped what amounted to hysteria on her part. He said, “Yes. But I knew why.”
    â€œI felt ashamed and angry with myself. Until I saw her, I did not realize she was just the same. It was as if—the murder and the trial made a difference in her, as if it put her in another world, as if she wasn’t Alice. I never knew her well. We’d met a few times before I went to England with Aunt Cornelia. Somehow she had become—removed, a name. Not Alice.”
    â€œYes, I know.”
    It had to be said, before the courage to say it was quite gone. “Richard …”
    His eyes quickened at the change and gravity in her voice. He waited, and she said, “Everything is different now.”
    â€œNothing between you and me is different.”
    â€œShe is your wife.”
    â€œShe is no more my wife than she was an hour ago! No more my wife than …” he stopped, released her quickly, and turned toward the mantel. He said in a different, quieter tone, “I really mean that exactly as it sounds. You are right of course, Myra. She is my wife and—this—does change things. Outwardly, that is; there are different things to consider. But she has been proved innocent, pardoned. Therefore,” he paused but went on, “therefore divorce …”
    How could they have been so blind! “We were wrong! We didn’t realize what a divorce would mean to her. We can’t do that. Not now …”
    He was looking into the fire. She could only see his dark head, bent. He said slowly, obliquely, “I love you. Nothing real has changed between you and me; nothing can change.”
    Tears suddenly threatened her. She said, unsteadily, thankfully, longing to go to him, touch him, feel his arms holding her, shielding her, and knowing that she must not move toward him, “I’ll remember that. Always.”
    He whirled around. “What do you mean by that? Listen, Myra! I don’t know what’s going to happen right now, or how it’s going to happen. I wasn’t expecting this. There are—angles, things to think of. But you and I cannot change …”
    She stood, holding the chair, to look directly into his face. “I can’t argue, Richard. Both of us knew that anything between us had to be forgotten, as soon as we saw Alice. It’s so— different ,” she cried. “Now that she’s home. We cannot add to the cruelty she’s already unjustly—so horribly unjustly—suffered.”
    She went to him then and put her hands upward, against his shoulders.
    â€œRichard, dear Richard—we will forget …”
    He did not reply, only looked at her with pain and again something like anger (With fate? With the way life arranged itself?) in his eyes and presently she put her head lightly against his shoulder, her face turned away from him so she looked at the ruby-red chair and the tall mahogany secretary. The Capo di Monte cupid smiled placidly at her.
    She said, slowly, pausing between the scattered words, aware of his nearness, too, and that, never again perhaps could she stand like that, leaning upon his strength and tenderness almost as truly as she leaned against his shoulder and felt the warmth of his arms holding her, “There is no other way. Alice is like a person who’s been sick and must have care. Like someone shipwrecked who must have safe harbor. We’ll forget, Richard, because we have to. I’ll go to stay with Tim. Perhaps—some time—the friendship we had in the beginning, Richard, will come back, without the—the other …” Her voice died away as she faced, in her mind, a bleak and arid space that lay ahead.
    Richard said nothing and gradually she became aware