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Various

"The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story"

It was
a world she didn't know the ways of.
When she got her answer, and found that the place where "The Cross of
Diamonds" would be shown that night was more than a hundred miles
away--that it meant going that much farther away from home--she told
herself this was a thing she couldn't do. She told herself this must
stop--that her brother was right in the things he said against it. It
wouldn't do. He hadn't said it was crazy, but that was what he meant--or
feared. She had told him she would try to stop. Now was the time to do
it--now when she would have to go so much farther away. But--_it_ was
going farther away--this glimpse of Howie--all that was left of Howie
was moving away from her! And after the disappointment of the night
before--She must see him once more! Then--yes, then she would stop.
She was excited when she had decided to do this. It lifted her out of
the nothingness. From this meager thing her great need could in a way
create the feeling that she was going to meet Howie. Once more she would
see him do that thing which was so like him as to bring him back into
life. _Why_ should she turn from it? What were all the other things
compared with this thing? This was one little flash of life in a world
that had ceased to be alive.
So again that night, in the clothes he had most liked, she went for that
poor little meeting with her husband--so pitifully little, and yet so
tremendous because it was all she would ever have.


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