Read "The Interloper" by Violet Jacob online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
CECILIA rose to meet a new day, each moment of which the coming years / failed to obliterate from her memory. In the first light hours she had / taken her happiness in her two hands and killed it, deliberately, for / the sake of the woman she loved. She had decided to part with Gilbert / Speid.
She hid nothing from herself and made no concealment. She did not / pretend that she could offer herself up willingly, or with any glow of / the emotional flame of renunciation, for she had not that temperament / which can make the sacrificial altar a bed of inverted luxury. She / neither fell on her knees, nor prayed, nor called upon Heaven to / witness her deed, because there was only one thing which she cared it / should witness, and that was Lady Eliza's peace of mind. Nor, while / purchasing this, did she omit to count the cost. The price was a higher / one than she could afford, for, when it was paid, there would be / nothing left.