unce love and fulfilment and fame because
of her and their child. It came over her in a flash that she could not
have done as much. Give up love that was strong and creative--no, never,
not for all the right and convention on the earth. Any more than the
Russian woman would have given it up! Women were braver than men
sometimes.

She folded the letter and put it back in its envelope with a curious
feeling of relief, a sort of gladness that he had had even the little
there was--those few days of fulfilment, of the diviner other life which
with all the years between them they had failed to grasp.

It was the most generous, the most genuine, the most humiliating moment
of Milly's life. Yes, she was glad that in all the drab reality of their
life,--in spite of the bills, the worry, the defeat,--he had had his
great moments of art and love. They were not stolen from her: such
moments cannot be stolen from anybody. She wished that he might only
know how freely she was glad,--not forgave him, because forgiveness had
nothing to do with it. She understood, at last, and was glad. If he
should come back to life now by some miracle, she would have the courage
after this self-revelation to leave him, to send him back, if not to
her,--at least to his great work. Only that, too, might now be too
late--alas!

With a quiet dignity that was new, Milly opened the other letter. It was
dated only a few weeks before from some small place in Russia. Madame
Saratoff explained briefly that she was now living with her children on
her mother's estate in central Russia, and she described the life there
in its perfect monotony, like the flat country, with its half animal
people. "I live like one of those eastern people," she wrote, "dreaming
of what has been in my life." She had heard accidentally of the American
from some one who had met him in New York. He was no longer painting,
she understood, but engaged in other work. That was sad. It was a
mistake always not to do that which one could do with most joy. In the
whirlpool of this life there was so much waste matter, so little that
was complete and perfect, that no one with power had the right not to
exercise it.

She sent this letter with the picture he had made of her. It belonged
more to him than to her because he had created it--the man's part--while
she had merely offered the accidental cause,--the woman's share. And
further she wished to torture him always with this evidence of what on