nventions. "Nothing matters," the Schlegels had
said in the past, "except one's self-respect and that of one's friends."
When the time came, other things mattered terribly. However, Madge
had yielded, and Helen was assured of peace for one day and night, and
to-morrow she would return to Germany.

As for herself, she determined to go too. No message came from Henry;
perhaps he expected her to apologise. Now that she had time to think
over her own tragedy, she was unrepentant. She neither forgave him
for his behaviour nor wished to forgive him. Her speech to him seemed
perfect. She would not have altered a word. It had to be uttered once in
a life, to adjust the lopsidedness of the world. It was spoken not only
to her husband, but to thousands of men like him--a protest against the
inner darkness in high places that comes with a commercial age. Though
he would build up his life without hers, she could not apologise. He had
refused to connect, on the clearest issue that can be laid before a man,
and their love must take the consequences.

No, there was nothing more to be done. They had tried not to go over the
precipice, but perhaps the fall was inevitable. And it comforted her to
think that the future was certainly inevitable; cause and effect would
go jangling forward to some goal doubtless, but to none that she could
imagine. At such moments the soul retires within, to float upon the
bosom of a deeper stream, and has communion with the dead, and sees
the world's glory not diminished, but different in kind to what she
has supposed. She alters her focus until trivial things are blurred.
Margaret had been tending this way all the winter. Leonard's death
brought her to the goal. Alas! that Henry should fade away as reality
emerged, and only her love for him should remain clear, stamped with his
image like the cameos we rescue out of dreams.

With unfaltering eye she traced his future. He would soon present a
healthy mind to the world again, and what did he or the world care if
he was rotten at the core? He would grow into a rich, jolly old man,
at times a little sentimental about women, but emptying his glass
with anyone. Tenacious of power, he would keep Charles and the rest
dependent, and retire from business reluctantly and at an advanced age.
He would settle down--though she could not realise this. In her eyes
Henry was always moving and causing others to move, until the ends of
the earth met. But in time he must get