step, you will have a long time to think it over before you hear from
me! I warn you that it has taken much less than this to ruin the
happiness of many a man and woman!"

Mary faced him, breathing hard. This was their first real quarrel.
Brief times of impatience, unsympathy, differences of opinion there had
been, but this--this Mary felt even now--was gravely different. With a
feeling curiously alien and cold, almost hostile, she eyed the face
opposite her own; the strange face that had been so familiar and dear
only at breakfast time.

"I WILL go," she said quietly. "I think it will do us both good."

"Nonsense!" George said. "I won't permit it."

"What will you do, make a public affair of it?"

"No, you know I won't do that. But don't talk like a child, Mary.
Remember, I mean what I say about your mother, and tell her so when she
arrives."

After that, he went away. A long time passed, while Mary sat very still
in the big leather chair at the head of the table. The sunlight
shifted, fell lower,--shone ruby red through a decanter of claret on
the sideboard. The house was very still.

After a while she went slowly upstairs. She dragged a little trunk from
a hall closet, and began quietly, methodically, to pack it with her own
clothes. Now and then her breast rose with a great sob, but she
controlled herself instantly.

"This can't go on," she said aloud to herself. "It's not today--it's
not to-morrow--but it's for all time. I can't keep this up. I can't
worry and apologize, and neglect George, and hurt Mamma's feelings for
the rest of my life. Mamma has always done her best for me, and I never
saw George until five years ago--

"It's not," she went on presently, "as if I were a woman who takes
marriage lightly. I have tried. But I won't desert Mamma. And I
won't--I will NOT!--endure having George talk to me as he did today!"

She would go down to the children, she would rest, she would read again
during the quiet evenings. Days would go by, weeks. But finally George
would write her--would come to her. He must. What else could he do?

Something like terror shook her. Was this the way serious, endless
separations began between men and their wives? Her mind flitted sickly
to other people's troubles: the Waynes, who had separated because Rose
liked gayety and Fred liked domestic peace; the Gardiners, who--well,
there never did seem to be any reason there. Frances and the baby just
went to her mother's home,