that sight, those words had stabbed her! Oh no, there was no possibility of doubt. He was false-hearted. He had meant to be false!
If he had just been weak and fallen into this situation, one could forgive. Forgive, but not marry. She could never marry a man whom she could not trust.
But he had been deliberately false, and she could scarcely be sorry for him. No, she could only be sorry for that poor desperate girl who had been willing to go through hell to have him.
Well, there was such a thing as hell on earth, of course. Her own present outlook seemed not far situated from such a location, and yet she knew if she had to go through even a mild kind of hell for the rest of her life, she would rather take it alone than tied up to the man whom just a few short hours before she had been joyously preparing to marry. No, she must be thankful that a kind Providence had even in such a tragic moment prevented her from marrying Carter McArthur.
And yet though all that was true, Sherrill Cameron lay with wide desperate eyes staring out at a sunlit desolation.
She closed her eyes again and tried to wish herself back to sleep, but the eyes flew open like a doll’s that had lost their weights. She knew that she was definitely awake for the day and could not drop back into merciful oblivion again even for a brief space. She must face what was before her.
So she lay staring about the room that had sheltered so much of her joy and happy anticipation, and suddenly from every wall and corner things jumped out at her that had been connected with her courtship. A great bunch of dried grasses that she and Carter had gathered the day they took their first walk together. It filled a thin crystal vase on the mantel and made a thing ethereally lovely. Gemmie never would have known that it was a reminder of dear dead days.
High over her white marble mantel was fastened a pennant. It spoke of the first football game she had attended with Carter, less than a year ago! Gemmie wouldn’t have realized that the pennant spoke eloquently of a lost past.
Knotted carelessly on the corner of a signed etching on the opposite wall, for no apparent reason at all, was a bow of scarlet ribbon, a memento of last Christmas, kept because Carter had tied it about her hair the morning they were skating together, and then had drawn her face back and kissed her behind a sheltering hemlock tree that hid them from the view of the other skaters on the creek. And that was another memory that she must cut out and throw away. It did not belong to her and never had belonged, it seemed! Gemmie had no idea what that red ribbon meant.
Over on her desk that bronze paperweight! Gemmie never had known that it had been on his desk the day she first went with Carter to his office. She had admired it and he had given it to her. That was before Arla came to be his secretary! Ah, but he had known and loved Arla first! He loved her enough afterward to have sent for Arla. And yet he had gone right on with his intimacy with Sherrill! The bronze, too, must go into the trash!
And over on the bureau, that little ivory figurine! Gemmie had always admired that. But she did not know that Carter had bought it for her in a curio shop the day they went together to New York.
Oh! She could not bear these memories! She must not! She would give way and weep. And weeping was not for her today! She must keep a mask of happiness on her face. She must not let anyone suspect that her life was shattered by that wedding as it had come out last night. They must think it was all planned or at least that a definite and friendly change was made before the ceremony. She could not go around and explain the whole thing as it had happened. Even if she were willing on her own part, she could not explain what involved others’ secrets. No, she must play her part through to the end and keep a brave, cheerful, even merry face. How was she to do it?
Then suddenly she could not bear the sight of those things on her wall,