The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK TM(251)

                “That, I believe, was a matter of convenience merely. Mrs. Golding had no money, and her father was not over-burdened with riches, and what little he had he held tightly. She had, for some reason or other, returned home with next to no wardrobe; René’s dress was suitable for travelling, and not likely to attract attention. They neither of them seem to have given a thought to the possibility of rewards being offered for tidings of René; and thus, no doubt, while waiting for her train in Paris, Mrs. Golding did not hesitate to show herself in Paris streets. I need not go into the details of her journey to Langford; they are already known to you. The poor woman, not seeing any conveyance at the country station, must have walked in the drenching rain to the Hall. At the hall door, possibly, her courage suddenly failed her, and, instead of ringing for admission, she creeps to a window to get a glimpse of the home-life within. That glimpse is fatal. She sees her husband and the woman he intends to marry seated together at table. She takes in at a glance the refinement of the home, together with the rigid conventionality of English domestic life. A wave of memory, perhaps, brings before her episodes in her past career altogether out of tune with this home picture. She feels the impracticability of the mission on which she is bent; a fit of her old impetuosity seizes her; she rushes away in the darkness, takes a wrong turning, perhaps—who knows—?”



                             “Ah, yes; and the stream was there waiting for her, and she thought she would end it all. Poor soul!”

                “Or it may be,” said Loveday pityingly, “that some sweet story of sainthood and martyrdom that she had heard in her childish days came floating dimly into her brain as she made her way through the darkness, and she thought she would do her best to make atonement to the one whom she had so deeply injured by not standing in the way of his future happiness. Here is my train! Ah, yes; it is a sad, sad story!”

                “Yes; for the present things are a trifle gloomy for the family at the Hall, I’ll admit,” said Ramsay, as he shut the carriage-door on Loveday; “but they’ll turn over a new leaf there before long. There’ll be a couple of weddings in the house before the year comes to an end, I’ll be bound.”

                “No,” said Loveday, as she steeled herself comfortably in a corner; “Mrs. Greenhow has shown herself in her true colours at this time of distress, and, from what I hear, will stand but little chance of becoming the second Mrs. Golding. Lord Guilleroy and the runaway René are the only two who will have to be congratulated as bride and bridegroom.”





HISTORY ON THE BEDROOM WALL, by Rebecca K. Jones and Josh Pachter

                I’ll never believe it was just a coincidence, not if I live to be 40. Somehow, I’m convinced, Ani knew.

                It was a quarter after seven on the last Saturday morning of fall semester. I was putting the finishing touches on my Physiological Psychology term project, which had been due on Friday—the day after Katie dumped me. Fortunately, Professor Griffen was a good guy, and he’d given me a 24-hour extension. I had three and a half of those hours left to cross my t’s and dot my i’s.

                I’d been listening to a lot of Ani DiFranco since the split—Katie had turned me on to her, and despite our split, I still really liked Ani’s music.

                “Love is a piano dropped from a fourth-story window,” she sang, “and you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

                I had my stereo whispering for once, instead of blaring. There’d been a big party over at the Ross Townhouses the night before, but I’d been squirreled away in my friend Geetika’s senior thesis carrel in the library, struggling to find the last connections between the neural structures involved in love and addiction, so I’d skipped it. This had been the last big party of the term, though, so I imagine most everyone else had been there. Now, just after 7 AM, it was quiet on Stew 2, a co-ed hall, and all signs pointed to it remaining quiet until 11 or so, which was why the assertive knock at my door took me by surprise. Except for Dee, who was by then surely folded into the full lotus position in Hepburn Lounge, everyone else in the dorm ought to have been sleeping it off.