nquillity.

But he remembered Gerty's warning words--he knew that, though time had
ceased in this room, its feet were hastening relentlessly toward the
door. Gerty had given him this supreme half-hour, and he must use it as
she willed.

He turned and looked about him, sternly compelling himself to regain his
consciousness of outward things. There was very little furniture in the
room. The shabby chest of drawers was spread with a lace cover, and set
out with a few gold-topped boxes and bottles, a rose-coloured
pin-cushion, a glass tray strewn with tortoise-shell hair-pins--he shrank
from the poignant intimacy of these trifles, and from the blank surface
of the toilet-mirror above them.

These were the only traces of luxury, of that clinging to the minute
observance of personal seemliness, which showed what her other
renunciations must have cost. There was no other token of her personality
about the room, unless it showed itself in the scrupulous neatness of the
scant articles of furniture: a washing-stand, two chairs, a small
writing-desk, and the little table near the bed. On this table stood the
empty bottle and glass, and from these also he averted his eyes.

The desk was closed, but on its slanting lid lay two letters which he
took up. One bore the address of a bank, and as it was stamped and
sealed, Selden, after a moment's hesitation, laid it aside. On the other
letter he read Gus Trenor's name; and the flap of the envelope was still
ungummed.

Temptation leapt on him like the stab of a knife. He staggered under it,
steadying himself against the desk. Why had she been writing to
Trenor--writing, presumably, just after their parting of the previous
evening? The thought unhallowed the memory of that last hour, made a mock
of the word he had come to speak, and defiled even the reconciling
silence upon which it fell. He felt himself flung back on all the ugly
uncertainties from which he thought he had cast loose forever. After all,
what did he know of her life? Only as much as she had chosen to show him,
and measured by the world's estimate, how little that was! By what
right--the letter in his hand seemed to ask--by what right was it he who
now passed into her confidence through the gate which death had left
unbarred? His heart cried out that it was by right of their last hour
together, the hour when she herself had placed the key in his hand.
Yes--but what if the letter to Trenor had been written afterward?