"I suppose," he said with bitterness, "it was because I asked you not to. Very well, I've learned my lesson. You knew that Guayabal is in a very unsettled state: you knew that Crowell had had trouble on his plantation: I told you there had been threats--demonstrations. I asked you not to run any risks. That is why, I suppose, when the opportunity arose, you deliberately ignored my wishes." "You are very unjust," I said, fighting back the tears. "I hope so," said Bill quietly, "but I'm afraid not. It seems as if we couldn't have a whole day of peace and friendliness under the same roof. I've tried my best, Mavis, to be as little in your way as possible--to make the best of a trying situation. But at every turn you manage to antagonize me and to rebel against me. I might have known--" He turned away and lighted a cigarette with fingers which shook. "I'm sorry," I said, steadying my voice with an effort, "if I have annoyed you. I did not go out this afternoon with such intention." I would have stopped there, but the lift of his shoulders angered me until I finally lost all control of myself. "I'll not be a burden to you long," I said. "As soon as we are home again I will release you from your responsibilities. I have wanted to spare Father, but I see that I can't--you go too far. I don't know how such things are done, but it shouldn't be very difficult to obtain an annulment of our marriage. The whole thing has been a ghastly mistake ... an impulse I have regretted ever since. But it's not too late," I said, with my head held very high, "to rectify that mistake." I walked past him into my own room. Somehow the pride that had always come to my rescue was missing now. I was just hurt--hurt, and unhappy and very lonely. To speak to me so! To look at me so, out of those steel-blue eyes! It was not just; it was not anything but deliberate cruelty! Once having said that I would make myself free, the thing crystalized for me as it had never done before. Of course, I had meant all along to separate from my temporary husband. That was understood at the outset. But it had seemed a long way off, indefinitely vague. And now that my decision was spoken, it loomed very near. Irrevocable. I shrank, in anticipation, from the publicity of it, the questions, the prying eyes. Wright would wonder and grieve--and Mercedes--and I? I hardly knew. On Father's sorrow and self-reproach I dared not dwell. Now I had nothing left. I rose and bathed my eyes. They were swollen from crying and my throat ached abominably. And then, with a tremendous effort, I opened my door and went out to find Mercedes. She was in her room, shaken but quite recovered, and full of gratitude to Wright for seeing her danger and pulling her away just in time. "Where were you?" she asked anxiously. "You weren't hurt, were you? You look dreadfully, Mavis!" Hurt? Yes, I was hurt beyond healing. But Mercedes must not know.