On the following Thursday morning Patience walked slowly over to where Beverly sat under a tree on one of the lawns, reading a newspaper. She had made up her mind to adopt Steele’s advice, but had deferred the evil moment as long as possible.

“Beverly,” she said abruptly, sitting down in front of him, “I want to speak to you.”

He laid down the newspaper and regarded her with eager admiration. She had carefully selected the most unbecoming frock she possessed, a sickly green, and twisted her hair in a fashion to distort the fine lines of her head. Nevertheless, she looked as fresh as the morning, and her eyes sparkled with excitement.

“What is it?” he asked. “Oh, why—why—”

“Never mind! I am going to have a business talk with you, and please don’t get excited. If you do, you’ll be sure to have a pain, you know.”

“Well, what is it? It doesn’t do a fellow any good to keep him in suspense.”

“On the first of November I am going away—”

“You are not!”

“And I shall not come back—not in any circumstances. You have proved that your attacks are more or less under your own control. A sojourn at some foreign baths will probably cure you. I have given you all of my life that I intend to give you. I know that self-sacrifice is the ideal of happiness of some women, but it is not mine. When I leave here on the first of November it will be forever. There is no inducement, material nor sentimental, that will bring me back. Do you understand that much clearly?”

He burst into a volley of oaths, and beat his knees with his fists. Patience continued as soon as she could be heard:—

“Now, it can do you no possible good to retain a legal hold on me, nor can you care to hear of your name becoming familiar in Park Row. Give me my freedom, and I will take my own name—”

“You’ll get no divorce,” he roared, “now nor ever. Do you understand that? I’ll brace up and live until I’m ninety—by God I will! I’ll go abroad and live at a water cure. You’ll never be the wife of any other man. Do you understand that?”

“Oh, Beverly,” she said, breaking suddenly, “don’t be cruel,—don’t! What good can it do you? Give me my freedom.”

He grasped her wrists. His eyes were full of rage and malevolence. “Do you want to marry some one else?” he asked. “Some damned newspaper man, I suppose.”

Patience stood up and shook him off. “If ever I do marry another man,” she said cuttingly, “you may be sure he will have brains this time, and that he will also be a gentleman. The most vulgar persons I have ever known have been socially the most highly placed.”

As she moved away he sprang after her and caught her arm. “Now look here,” he said hoarsely, “you’ll neither marry, nor will you have a lover, unless you want all New York to know it. The moment you leave this place a detective goes after you. You’ll do nothing that I don’t know. I may not have brains, but I’ll get the best of you all the same.”

Patience flung him off and went straight to Mrs. Peele. Her mother-in-law watched her with narrowed eyes until she had finished, then remarked unexpectedly: “I shall do my best to make my son divorce you. If you intend to leave us I prefer that the rupture should be complete. As you suggest, I have no desire to see the name of Peele signed to newspaper articles. Moreover, I believe I can persuade my son to marry again,—a woman of his own station, who will not desecrate the name of wife; and who,” with sudden violence, “will give this house an heir.” She paused a moment to recover herself, then continued more calmly: “I have talked the matter over with my husband, and he agrees with me. Of course, you will expect no alimony.”

“I don’t want alimony. I make more with my pen than Beverly ever allowed me.”

The red came into Mrs. Peele’s face. “My son was quite as generous as was to be expected. Moreover, he had the right to demand that his wife should not come to him empty handed. I shall speak to Beverly.”

An hour later Patience met Mrs. Peele in the side hall. The older woman looked flushed and excited. “I have had a most terrible interview with Beverly,” she exclaimed. “I can do nothing with him. You little fool, why didn’t you swear that you did not want to marry another man? Heaven knows I should prefer to have you take another name as soon as possible; but you have ruined your chances by letting Beverly suspect the truth.”

Patience sank upon a chair, and sat for a long while staring straight before her. She felt the incarnation of rage and hate. Her lovely face was set and repellent. She came to herself with a start, and wondered if she had ever had any womanly impulses.

She had never wanted anything in her life as much as she wanted to marry Morgan Steele. His very unlikeness to all her old ideals fascinated her, and she was convinced that she was profoundly in love. She could hardly imagine what life with him would be like, and was the more curious to ascertain; and the obstacles enraged her impatient spirit.

The butler left the dining-room to announce luncheon.

“Send mine up to my room,” she said. As she reached the first landing of the stair she turned to him suddenly. “Tell John to go to New York this afternoon, and have Mr. Beverly’s morphine bottle filled. He took the last last night and he may need it again before I go down myself. Don’t fail to tell him. The bottle is in the lavatory.”

That afternoon she met Steele at the edge of the wood.

“I could not keep still,” she said. “My brain feels on fire.”

He drew her hand through his arm and held it tenderly. “What is it?” he asked. “Did you speak, and was it disagreeable?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. Just now it is enough to feel you here.”

“I can only stay an hour. I should not have come at all, but I could not stay away.”

When they reached the hammocks Patience flung herself into hers and told the story of the morning with dramatic indignation. Then, insensibly, she drifted into the story of her married life, and described her intense hatred and loathing of her husband.

“It was all my own fault,” she said in conclusion. “I married him with my eyes open; but all the same I hate him. Sometimes I felt, and feel yet, fairly murderous. I seem to have a terrible nature—does it make you hate me?”

He laughed. “No, I don’t hate you, and you know it quite as well as I do. You have wonderful possibilities—but I can’t quite make up my mind that I am the man—”

“Oh, yes, you are. I could love you as much as I hate Beverly Peele.”

“Well, if you think so it amounts to the same thing, for a while at least. I shall come again in a few days. I’ll write you. If your husband cannot be induced to change his mind I’ll talk to you about a paper that has been offered to me in Texas; but if you prefer it the other way, I’ll leave you alone without a word.”

“Oh, I don’t know! There are some words I hate,—the words free-love and adultery. I don’t want to be exploited in the newspapers, and I don’t want to be insulted by my landlord. After all, expediency is the source of all morality. My life with you would be a thousand times better than it was with Beverly Peele; but I suspect that we can’t violate certain moral laws that heredity has made part of our brain fibre, without ultimate regret, even when we keep the world in ignorance. I suffered horribly once, although I had not defied the conventions. But I think we must have everything, or the large share of herself that Nature has given each of us rebels,—in other words, the ideal is not complete.”

“When you are very much in love,” he said dryly, “you won’t analyse.”

Contrary to her habit, she remained in the wood for some time after he left her. Suddenly she was aroused from her reverie by a peculiar heavy sound, as of a man crawling. She listened intently, her hair stiffening: the house was a quarter of a mile away. The sound continued steadily. She sprang to her feet and fled from the wood. As she ran up the hill beyond, she glanced fearfully over her shoulder. A man shot from the lower edge of the wood and ran toward the stables.