She felt immensely sorry for him. She understood; and vowed to save him from the fears which—now that her mind had been opened—she saw behind his eyes. But she could not, at the outset, quite keep the word “madness” out of her thoughts. Mad! Supposing Peter were to go mad? Nor, in her heart of hearts, could she quite help despising him for his fears—even as she despised Francis Gordon for his idleness. Peter was no longer a Man, her husband, some one to be looked up to, leaned on, consulted in emergencies—but a weakling, a creature to be protected. For these thoughts, she hated herself; they shamed her, as his fears shamed Peter: and she set herself to conquer them, fearlessly, resolutely. So that, by the end of two days, she had almost accustomed herself to the idea of illness. Peter was ill—she said the word over and over again—ill, not mad, ill with a sickness that she alone could cure. This idea of illness satisfied the motherhood in her—and of the matehood she was not even yet fully unaware. § 2 If Patricia had been a religious woman, especially if she had been a Roman Catholic, her natural refuge in such a crisis would have been the priest. But Patricia—though she paid the customary lip-service of her caste in Arlsfield Church—regarded her God as she regarded her King. Both were symbols: the one a symbol of conduct, the other a symbol of country. As symbols one owed loyalty to both; but individually neither could be of the slightest assistance. Every normal human being, argued Patricia, must fight its way through the world unaided. . . . Hitherto, her own battles had been purely personal: the fights of reason (a sensible General) against instincts (a horde of hare-brained savages); and hitherto—except for one lapse, falling in love with her own husband—reason had always triumphed. Reason must triumph again; only Reason—not instinct—could save Peter. . . . Having thus persuaded herself, as the drunkard persuades himself of his perfect sobriety, that her passion for Peter would soon be a thing of the past, Patricia took a lonely walk, tried to sum up her problems. First and foremost of these was to carry out her father’s instructions: to make Peter confess; break down the wall of reticent commonplaces which he had built up against her. How? She remembered her father’s words, “Make love to him as if you were his mistress!” The words themselves conveyed nothing whatever to a woman utterly unversed in the wiles of sex; but they filled her with a delicious feeling of fright. For a moment, the idea of being Peter’s “mistress” completely routed that calculating General, Reason. . . . This “bed-room thought,” as Patricia phrased it, was so disturbing that reason took refuge among its minor problems. Peter’s leave had still ten weeks to run; long before it ended, she would find some way of gaining his confidence.