lanation--about "the
necessity of meeting fixed charges" which he himself had fixed, about
"fair share of prosperity," "everything more expensive," "the country
better able to pay," "every one doing as we are," and so on.

She listened closely; she had not come ignorant of the subject, and she
penetrated his sophistries. When he saw her expression, saw he had
failed to convince her, into, his eyes came the look she understood
well--the look that told her she would only infuriate him and bruise
herself by flinging herself against the iron of his resolve.

"You must let me attend to my own business," he ended, his tone
good-natured, his eyes hard.

She sat staring into the fire for several minutes--from her eyes looked
a will as strong as his. Then she rose and, her voice lower than
before but vibrating, said: "All round us--here in New York--all over
this country--away off in Europe--I can see them--I can feel
them--SUFFERING! As you yourself said, it's HORRIBLY cold!" She drew
herself up and faced him, a light in her eyes before which he visibly
shrank. "Yes, it's YOUR business. But it shan't be mine or MY boy's!"

And she left the room. In the morning she returned to Dawn Hill and
arranged her affairs so that she would be free to go. Not since the
spring day, nearly nine years before, when she began that Vergil lesson
which ended in a lesson in the pitilessness of consequences that was
not yet finished, had her heart been so light, so hopeful. In vain she
reminded herself that the doing of this larger duty, so imperative,
nevertheless endangered her father and mother. "They will be proud
that I'm doing it," she assured herself.

"For Gardiner's sake, as well as for mine, they'll be glad I separated
him and myself from this debased life. They will--they MUST, since it
is right!" And already she felt the easing of the bonds that had never
failed to cut deeper into the living flesh whenever she had ventured to
hope that she was at last growing used to them.

"Free!" she said to herself exultantly. She dared to exult, but she
did not dare to express to herself the hopes, the wild, incredible
hopes, which the very thought of freedom set to quivering deep down in
her, as the first warmth makes the life toss in its slumber in the
planted seed.

On Friday she came up to New York late in the afternoon, and in the
evening went to the opera--for a last look round. As the lights were
lowering for the rise of