“I am not breaking my heart. Don’t let that worry you. The mere fact of your dishonesty is quite enough to break the spell—for you are not the woman I imagined you to be. I was merely worshipping an ideal for the hour. Do you love your husband?” “No.” “Then you are a harlot,” he said, deliberately. “It only needed that.” He rose to his feet and looked contemptuously at her scarlet face. “At all events it was an amusing episode,” he said. “Good-night.” XIV It was a matter of comment before the summer was over, both among the guests at Peele Manor and the neighbours, that Mr. and Mrs. Beverly Peele had come to the parting of the ways. As the young man’s infatuation was as notable as his wife’s indifference, he received the larger share of sympathy. The married men championed Patience and expressed it in their time-honoured fashion; and although they worried her she looked forward with terror to the winter: she would willingly have taken them all to board and trusted to their wives to keep them in order. Beverly had confided his woes long since to his mother. She declined to discuss the subject with her daughter-in-law, but treated her with a chill severity. Fortunately they were gay that summer, and Patience had much to do. Hal and May were absorbed in preparations for their wedding, and the duties of hostess fell largely on her shoulders. Late in the fall there was a double wedding under the medallion of Peele the First. Immediately thereafter May went to Cuba; and Hal to Europe, to pay a series of visits. Mrs. Peele continued to entertain, and was obliged to confess that her daughter-in-law was very useful, and in deportment above reproach. Outwardly Patience looked almost as cold a woman of the world as herself, and gave no evidence of the storms brewing within; but one day she hung out a signal. Mrs. Peele announced that she should go to town on the first of December. Patience followed her into her bedroom and closed the door. “May I speak to you a moment alone?” she asked. “Certainly,” said Mrs. Peele, frigidly. “Will you sit down?” She herself took an upright chair, and suggested, Patience thought, a judge on his bench. “I want to go to town with you this winter.” “I should be happy to have my dear son with me, and I will not deny that you are a great help to me; but Beverly is as strongly opposed as ever to city life. I asked him myself to go down for the winter, but he refused. He is one of Nature’s own children, and loves the country.” “He certainly is very close to Nature in several of her moods. But I wish to go whether he does or not.” “You would leave your husband?” Mrs. Peele spoke with meditative scorn. “It will be better for both of us not to be shut up here together for another winter. I—I will not answer for the consequences.” “Is that a threat?” “You can take it as you choose.” “Do you not love my son?” “No, I do not.” “And you are not ashamed to make such an admission?”