Things he had done, words he had said, characteristics she had
observed in him, all these things flashed into her mind, upsetting and
confirming each and every theory with an utter lack of logic, but with
pitiless conclusiveness.
And the longer she thought the more hopeless things grew. Theo himself
she dismissed with furious impatience; his letters remained unopened, an
affectionate wire of congratulation on Tommy's improvement she did not
answer. He and everyone else were swept aside by the flood of emotional
analysis regarding Joyselle that, in its headlong course, threatened to
carry her reason with it.
"If I had been married," she thought over and over again with cruel
shrewdness, "things--would have been different, and then he _could_ not
have escaped."
She wrote to Joyselle long letters full of incoherent self-accusations,
and made appeals for pity, but she knew that he would not answer her,
and so burned the letters.
She could not eat; did not even try, and the little sleep she got from
sheer exhaustion, after tramping up and down for hours, was heavy and
unrestful. Lady Kingsmead came to her door once or twice, but was not
allowed to enter, and went away unprotesting.
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