Again her face was quivering. But with an effort controlling herself, she went into the nursery. And on the floor with her wee son, slowly rolling a big red ball back and forth to each other, soon again she had grown quiet, almost like her natural self. She took supper alone, and then read a novel, page after page, without comprehending. An hour later she went to bed, and there lay listening to the town--to its numberless voices, distinct and confused, from windows close by and from the street, and from other streets by hundreds and from a million other homes, and from the two rivers and the sea--voices blurred and fused in one. And its tone, to Ethel's ears, was one of utter indifference--good-humoured enough but rather bored with "young things" weeping on its breast. "Be Mrs. Grewe, if you like," it said, "or Sally Crothers or Fanny Carr. Or go back home to your history prof. Each one of these things has been done before by so many thousands just like you. Nobody cares. You have no neighbours. Do exactly as you like." "Thank you very much," she said. "I choose to be Sally Crothers first. And if that fails--well, between Fanny Carr and Mrs. Grewe there isn't much choice. Do you think so?" "Oh, no," said the city. And it yawned. But Ethel lay there thinking. "Excuse me," she spoke presently. "Sorry to annoy you again--but is there any God about?" "None," came the sleepy answer. "Do as you like, I tell you." She opened her eyes and sat up in bed. "Now I've been getting morbid again! For goodness' sake let's try to be healthy and clear about this!" And she tried to be. But for some time she made little headway. It was easy to grimly shut her teeth and resolve, "I've got to do this by myself, talk to Joe and simply make him believe me!" But as soon as she came to the details of what she should say to her husband, his face as she had seen it last--worn and nervous, overwrought--kept rising up before her. Could she convince him! "It's my last chance!" If only she knew how to go about it! She wanted to be heroic and face this crisis all alone--but she had been alone so much. Tonight it seemed to Ethel as though she had struggled alone for years. Was it all worth while, she asked herself. She could feel her courage ooze again. Her thinking grew vague and uneven. . . . And more and more the picture rose of the woman friend she had counted on having--Sally Crothers, who was so clever, an older woman who knew New York, knew what to do in such tangles as this, knew Joe, had known him back in that past which Ethel was trying to raise again. And it was exasperating! "If I could only get at her!" she thought. Carefully, almost word by word, she went over in her mind her talk with Mrs. Crothers that day, in order to find out her mistakes.