She fled. She heard her name faintly through the din of rushing blood in her ears, but she stumbled across the field out into the lane, towards the sea. There followed the most atrocious hour Milly was ever to know in her life, while she wandered aimlessly to and fro on the lonely beach. Her marriage was over--that thought returned like a mournful chant in the storm of blind feeling. Latterly she had come to take her husband as a matter of course, as a part of the married life of a woman. Though she had said to Nettie Gilbert, "I'm as much in love with Jack as when I married him," and believed it, she hadn't been. But now that another had dared to take her husband from her, if only for a few days or hours, she was outraged. She persistently focussed her whole anguish upon this foreign creature with her vampire mouth, though she might know in the depth of her heart that her quarrel was not with the Russian or any woman, but with fate.... She kept repeating to herself,--"He doesn't love me any longer. He loves her--_her_!... He will be hers now--for a time. They are all like that,--artists. It's _bourgeois_ to love one woman always." So Womanhood from the beginning of time seemed outraged in her person. Had she not joyfully "given up everything for him," as all women did for the men they loved? (Even her worldly prospects when she married the penniless artist began to seem to her brighter than they really had been.) Had she not, at any rate, given _herself_ to him, first, and always, and only? And borne him a child in pain and danger? What more could woman do? He was her debtor for eternity, as every man was to the woman who gave herself to him. And four years had barely passed before another one plucked him easily from her side!... Women were cheated always in the game of life because of their hearts, fated unfairly in the primal scheme of things. Marion Reddon knew--she probably had had _her_ experiences. But at least she had the child. On that note her heart became centred, and she hurried back to the hotel and began aimlessly to gather her clothes together and throw them into the trunks. She must take her child and leave at once. She did not want to see him again.... But where should she go--how? Jack always arranged everything for her: she couldn't even make out a time-table or buy a railroad ticket. Marriage had made her dependent--she would have to learn. At this moment Bragdon entered the room. His face still wore the stern expression she had noted, which gave him the look of age. "What are you doing?" he demanded abruptly. "Don't you see--packing!" "What for?... I've cabled home for more money--I'm going to stay here and paint." She thought swiftly to herself that the Other had persuaded him to do what he had refused to do for her. She made no reply, but continued to put things blindly into the trunk. XI CRISIS