It had become a custom of mine to carry my perturbation of heart and mind to my boy's grave; there, in the silence and the nothingness of life, to find a balm and fortitude. It was upon such a mission I set out one day late in September. Under the early autumn haze the meadows lay carpeted with golden rod and fleecy lace of the Queen's handkerchief. Soothed by this tryst with my loved one I returned to town prepared to take up the battle. Arriving at the Grand Central Station I decided to telephone to Will's club with the hope of finding he had returned during my absence. Stopping to pay the toll I glanced listlessly around the waiting-room. A familiar figure caused me to start forward, then draw back. There, coming through the station was my husband and his "star." From the handbags he carried--one of which I recognized as his--it was evident that they had come direct from the train. I recalled that Will had mentioned the fact that the star had recently bought a country residence. And, too, it recurred to me that, when on Saturday night Will had telephoned me that he was at a Turkish bath and would remain there all day, his voice had a far-away sound to it, as if the message were at long distance. Sunday and Monday had passed with no word from him. I now understood where he had been.... I watched them drive away in a hansom.... Then I took a car home. CHAPTER XIX It had never before suggested itself to me that divorce was the only solution. Divorce had always appeared to me an acknowledgment of failure--failure of married life. When my son was taken from me I had cherished the delusion that our differences lay buried in his grave; that an adjustment of our married life was imminent.... Divorce! To give him his freedom; to turn me upon the world without anchor, ballast or compass.... A kind of terror took possession of me--not the terror of being thrown upon my own resources for a livelihood, since I was not dependent upon my husband for maintenance, a consideration which prevents many women from severing a bond which has become repugnant to them--but the terror of loneliness. I had already tasted of this bitterness--was I now to be surfeited with it? If only Boy had been spared to me! O, God, the pity of it all!... And yet, there was no other way. To carry on the farce of married relationship; to submit to him, feeling only revulsion, repugnance, was nothing short of prostitution. And had I not already prostituted the best that was in me? Already the corroding influences around me had begun to tell. Even John Gailbraith had noticed the change in me and had alluded to it under the veil of kindly intent. If I were to save anything from the wreckage I must begin now, at once--before it was too late. I had seen women, good women, stronger women than myself, break under the strain of neglect and loneliness.... Well, I should not break. Pride should sustain me.... The future ... no, I dared not yet think of the future. It made me quail and