"I hardly think he will," the Judge responded, dryly. But with the loyalty of one man for another, even when that other is unworthy, he said no more. Inwardly he was groaning, "Just as I feared. Too bad! That young man had a good case and he is letting it go by default. Margaret is not the woman to stand this when she finds out." * * * * * It is an evil hour for a man when a woman takes to her hungry heart a substitute for the affection he withholds, but when the thing substituted is an innocent thing it is a godsend to the woman. A plant if denied the light on one side will turn this way and that. When it cannot get it in any direction it dies. As the months went by, Margaret passed through deep and changing experiences. First there was a period of bewilderment. What had she done that should make this difference in Victor? He had been her persistent wooer before marriage. Was the case now to be reversed? Her pride revolted, but her instinct told her that if the fire on their domestic altar was not to die out she would be the one to fan the flame. She deliberately and with purpose aforethought set herself to hold her husband's love. It seemed to her almost humiliating that she should have to fight this fight,--but how could she bear a loveless home? That she was only in part successful she could not fail to see, the plain truth being that Victor De Jarnette was restive under the bonds that bound him to one woman and a home, being of that masculine type which desires the pleasures of the married state and the liberty of bachelorhood. He did not intend to be unkind, but he intended to have his liberty. And the two involved a nice adjustment that, as yet, Margaret had not learned to comprehend. To this period of bewilderment and baffled endeavor succeeded one of apathy. Her sensibilities seemed blunted. What was at first a sharp, intolerable pain became later a dull ache. Nothing seemed to matter much. Mrs. Kirtley was concerned, and told her she needed a tonic, but Margaret shook her head. It was a comfort, anyway, to find that she did not care as much as she did at first. That, she told herself, would have been unbearable,--that would have been against nature. Perhaps she would get so after a while that she would not care at all. She had seen some married people who appeared entirely indifferent to each other,--the woman led her life and the man his. And yet they got along at least respectably.... After all, she thought with a slight shiver, it must be a gray life--she had not thought that hers would be like that! Perhaps it was just her physical lassitude that made her feel so dead. She lay hours at a time on the couch when Victor was gone, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, hoping nothing.