An instant later Mrs. Bruce pushed her chair back from the table, unable longer to endure the suspense. “You’ll excuse me, Nixie, if I see—” she said, and rose. The laces of her silken gown trailed so hurriedly through the door, that Robert had time but to take a step after her. He sank back in his chair. “Well, what does it all mean?” he murmured. “This is a cozy little vacation breakfast!” Mrs. Bruce held her lip between her teeth as she mounted the stairs. “Whatever has happened,” she thought, “I shall hold my own. What I said to Betsy was nothing but the truth. Irving will cross-question me, but I don’t care—” Her excitement was at fever-heat by the time she reached the open door of Betsy’s room. She paused there and supported herself against the jamb. What she saw acted like a shower-bath upon her. The familiar walls were stripped, the breeze blew through the silent, empty room, and there, seated on the trunk, was Irving, his face buried in his hands, his broad shoulders convulsed. The only time she had ever seen him weep was when his father died. This room, too, seemed like the chamber of death. “Irving!” she cried out in sudden pain, and ran to him. He put out one hand and held her off. She pressed her own lips with her fingers to hold their quivering, and stared at him, miserably. He rose from the trunk, walked over to the window, and stood there with his back to her, controlling himself and wiping his eyes. Betsy’s words seemed to echo in her heart as she stood, hesitating and wretched. “Of the unspoken word you are master. The spoken word is master of you.” Her breath came fast. “Why has she done this, Irving?” she asked unsteadily. “That is for you to tell,—if you will,” he answered. His voice was low and thick. She drew a long sobbing breath. He had pushed her away. He had shrunk from her. “You blame me, do you, before you have heard a word?” she asked. “Let’s not have any nonsense, or justification,” he answered, without turning. “Something has occurred which I would have given ten years of my life to prevent.” The iron entered his listener’s soul. All her body trembled. She did not know that at this very moment he was fighting for her against his own heart; forcing himself to remember her love for him, and the long years of her devotion. A petty, petted woman, he reminded himself, whose shallows he had perceived even as a child; and he controlled the anger against her which filled him; setting a guard upon the tongue that longed to lash her until her pitiful vanity should be dead beyond recall. She stood there, mute, and he continued to stand with his back to her. “You left the inn last night, in anger,” he said at last. “Hurt! So hurt, Irving,” she cried. “You came home and wreaked your ill-temper on Betsy—Betsy, whose little finger is of more worth than your whole body and mine.”