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

you.”
    â€œDo you mean I’m never to see you again?”
    He said quietly, “Not like this. I ought not to have kept you down here so long. It’s cold and it’s late.” He slipped his hand under her arm again and turned her toward the house.
    â€œBut Richard …”
    â€œYou were right; I was wrong.”
    They reached the path through the trees. How could this be the end of love? The end of Richard. The end of Myra.
    Dried pine needles rustled under their feet along the path. A feathery branch touched her cheek like a ghostly hand. But everything was said. In that short time every argument had been advanced, every possible course explored.
    She had to leave. Well, she’d known that from the beginning.
    But suddenly, walking across the lawn now, with the lights of the house ahead of her, she thought: Richard loves me.
    Nothing could take that from her. It was like the promise of a rock to cling to in a storm, a fire to warm her heart. If she never saw him again in her life, never touched his hand in greeting, never listened for the sound of his footsteps, she’d have that, always.
    Richard had stopped. He caught her suddenly by the arm and pulled her around to face him. “Listen, Myra,” he said. “We’ve covered everything. We’ve argued against ourselves, we’ve talked and talked and none of it’s any good. I suppose we had to talk and argue it out—if only to see how wrong we were.”
    â€œWrong?”
    â€œDead wrong,” said Richard. He laughed with a swift exultance and cried, “None of it is valid against you and me! There’s just one thing that’s really important. I’m going to marry you.”
    He shook her a little, his face white against the night. “Do you understand? We’re going to marry.”
    His gaze was caught by something beyond her. He was staring up at the house. He cried, “All those lights! What the hell?” He broke off. He let her go and ran across the dark lawn. She followed. Willie scrambled after her. The house was ablaze with lights; they streamed out upon the terrace.
    They reached the steps, Richard ahead. He was still ahead when he came to the French doors into the library and flung one of them open.
    A woman was sitting in the ruby chair near the fire. She had tossed a fur coat on the table. She was smiling.
    Her golden hair shone in the light. The fire crackled softly. She put back her head and said in a clear, high voice, “Darling, I’ve come back. I’ll never leave you again.”
    It was, of course, Alice.

CHAPTER 5
    I F RICHARD MOVED OR spoke Myra did not know it. She was vaguely aware of someone else in the room, too, a man who rose and came forward. She was vaguely aware of the fact, too, that he was speaking. She heard, or at least sensed, no words. Her whole consciousness was taken up with Alice. Alice’s presence in that room. Her small face, her wistful, tired smile. Her fragile beauty.
    She could not be there! It was unreal; it was a dream; it could not be true.
    It was true.
    There was the ruby-red chair in which Myra had sat so short a time ago. There were the papers and the mail Barton had placed on the table. The fire had been replenished and was burning brightly. She had an impulse to touch the table, touch something real and material—the fur coat that lay across the table was real, too; mink, in soft luxurious folds, tossed there by an accustomed hand. How had Alice had a mink coat in prison? Had it been stored somewhere? She had a sudden vision of Alice taking walks in a prison yard wrapped in mink. It was so sharply fantastic that it acted as a restorative. She roused from the first sense of incredulity. Alice had come home; Alice was sitting in the red chair that so set off her beauty; her fair head was dropping back wearily against it, her pansy brown eyes luminous and soft as if full of unshed tears. The man, the strange man in