than he had ever believed her to be.

But though her pride, her insulted innocence, had carried her unbroken
through the interview, she was in reality cruelly humiliated. That
final sentence of Ted's anger--"You've run after him--that's what
you've done!"--rang in her ears for days afterward, shaming her as only
the very proud can be shamed. It was not true of her, she told
herself; it was not true--but it was hideous that it could have been
said of her nevertheless. That Peter had never thought it of her, she
was confident. It was impossible that Peter should misunderstand her
in anything. But she dreaded seeing him with the accusation in her
mind. She could not meet him now without an acute and painful
self-consciousness. Her happy friendship with him was changed, was
forever spoiled. At last she wrote to him, telling him not to come to
see her for awhile--not to come until she should bid him. After she
had sent the note, however, she suffered more than before, feeling that
she had brought constraint between them, that she had suggested to
Peter, by her request that he stay away from her, the same unworthy
thoughts about them that Ted had flung at her. Far, far worse than
meeting him was the growing certainty that she had made him
self-conscious about their friendship, too; that she had shown it to
him as possible of degrading misconstruction. For he would read from
her note, carefully though she had refrained from reasons or
explanations, just what had happened. Peter would never comfortably
miss a thing like that; sensitive and subtle to a degree, he could
never be spared by mere omissions, by lack of plain and definite
statement.

It was unbearable that such a situation should have come about. Not
for a moment did she forgive Ted for creating it. But she lived on
with him in cool outward harmony, realizing that in marriage one may
have to endure hurt and disappointment, and being much too high-bred a
woman to take her revenge in petty breaches of courtesy.

That she was disappointed in Ted, as well as hurt by him, she now
admitted to herself for the first time. It is curious how some final
and serious issue between two people living together will cast a light
on all the past; will disclose anew, and more flagrantly, lapses and
shortcomings and injuries that had once seemed trifles and been ignored
or condoned or forgotten. Thus Sheila now looked backward along the
years of her marriage and saw ho