"Then it is contrary to the law of the Holy and Just One, and I will never acknowledge its right. I say, and shall always say, my class ring was stolen; and that the person who took it was, and is, a thief. The law may give you my clothing and ornaments, and your mother, assuming your things to be hers, may give them away; and you may call it lawful, but justice and equity would soon dispose of that legal fiction. I shall always deny it. To falter in doing so, would be sin." In uttering these words she became a Theodora he had never before seen. Her beauty was triumphant over both her anger and her sorrow. Her splendid eyes stabbed him with their scornful glances; her air and attitude was regal as that of Justice herself, and her words went home like javelins. Mentally and spiritually, he cowered before her. So he took out his watch and said: "Dinner is served." "I want no dinner." He answered, "Very well," but there was the look in his eyes of a man who knows he is defrauding his own soul. And though at that moment he understood his mother's hatred of her, and believed that he himself hated her, yet even then, at the root of his hate, there lay a secret, ardent thirst for her love. CHAPTER X THEODORA MAKES A NEW LIFE It is not by grand or romantic events, that life is usually shaped; the most trivial things are the ministers of Destiny, but no matter how insignificant they may appear, they bring with them a sense of fatality not to be put away. When the great dramatist would make Othello murder Desdemona, he did not choose as a cause the loss of some priceless necklace, or a diamond ornament, he knew intuitively that such a simple thing as a pocket handkerchief would be more natural. So in Theodora's case, the everyday occurrence of a quarrel with a servant girl was the culmination of years full of far more cogent reasons, for her final decision to abandon a life which she was unable to manage. But when Robert went to his dinner, and left her alone to struggle with a defeat and a loss she felt so keenly she came to this positive conclusion. In that hour her life was brought to the fine point of a single word. "Yes" or "No," which was it to be? Would she accept for herself and her child the wretched life she had unknowingly chosen? Or, would she abandon it, and seek some happier environment? And after half-an-hour's intense thought and feeling, she stood erect, and, clasping her hands, uttered an emphatic "Yes!" Even at that hour, her messenger was on his way to consult her parents, and she had little doubt as to their decision. She believed they would bid her "Go in God's name"; and fortified by that order, she would follow the advice David Campbell gave her. He knew the United States well, and it was a wonderful thing, he should have come home in this time of her trouble. Surely he had been sent for her help and direction.