It had been
but the last flicker before extinction. The capitalist had evidently
thought better of risking his money on such a venture.
"And I was a gaping, weak-kneed idiot not to sell for what I could get!"
he told his sister. "But it's just our luck. I might have known nothing
decent could ever happen to us!"
It was on that evening, when the outlook was at its blackest, that
Violet wrote at last, without consulting Jerry, to the man in whose
hands lay her freedom.
It was a short epistle, and humbly worded, for she realised that this,
at least, was his due.
"I want you," she wrote, "to forgive me, if you can, for the wrong I
have done you, and to set me free. I accepted you upon impulse, I am
ashamed to say, for the sake of your money. But the shame would be even
greater if I did not tell you so. I do not know what view you will take,
but my own is that, in releasing me, you will not lose anything that is
worth having."
The answer to this appeal came the next day by hand:
"May I see you alone at your flat at five o'clock?"
She had not expected it, and she felt for an instant as if a master hand
had touched her, sending the blood tingling through her veins like fire.
She sent a reply in the affirmative; and then set herself to face the
longest day she had ever lived through.
She sat alone during the afternoon, striving desperately to nerve
herself for the ordeal.
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