sible to reason with her, her terror and humiliation were too
great. She could not, she declared, live another day in this atmosphere.
He pointed out that, since the miser had acknowledged the checks, a
prosecution was out of the question, and that she was as safe at home as
a thousand miles away. It was, however, useless and painful to argue with
her. Her double crime had been laid bare, and shame--all the more acute
because it humbled a woman who had borne herself proudly all her life--as
much as fright prompted her flight. Moreover, she believed that Ormsby
might act upon the rector's confession, despite Herresford's dying
acknowledgment.

* * * * *

For a time, they feared that the rector would slip out of the world. He
lay quite still, but his lips moved incessantly, murmuring his wife's
name; and from this condition he passed into a state of mental coma, from
which he did not recover till next day, after a long and heavy sleep.
Then, he asked again for his wife; and they told him that she had gone
away--for the present.

"Poor Mary, poor Mary!" he murmured, and fell asleep again.

Dick's recovery was more swift. He was soon at his father's bedside, and
the pleasure that the stricken man took in the presence of his son did
more to help him back to full consciousness of his surroundings than
anything else.

No word came from the wife, however. She was deeply wounded, as well as
humiliated. She recognized that her god and the rector's were not the
same. Hers was self. He had made peace with his Master; but her heart was
still hard; and her god was only a graven image.

In an empty, barnlike hotel in an obscure town, with never a familiar
face about her, she experienced her first sensation of utter desolation.
She missed Dick. She missed Netty; yes, even Netty would have been a
comfort. But, beyond all, she missed her husband.

Away from home, alone, in a strange place, she was able to survey herself
and her affairs with a detachment impossible in the familiar surroundings
of the rectory. Economy was no longer a consideration; expense mattered
nothing now; but how surprisingly little she desired to spend when both
hands were full! How trivial the difference that money really made in the
things that mattered! It could not buy back the respect of husband and
son. Yet, along with these thoughts came others full of hot rebellion,
for her penitence was not yet complete. She