"CUMBERLAND-THORNE.--At the church of the Holy Trinity, September 21st, 18--, by the Rev. John Sylvestus, Cecil Cumberland to Ethel Ross Thorne; both of this city." Mrs. Mason laid the paper on the little stand beside her chair. "My daughter," she said, looking up at the girl seriously, "this can make no difference." "No, mother," very quietly, "no difference; but I thought you ought to know." In her own room, at night, when the house was still, the girl sat with the letter in her lap thinking. The moonlight poured in through the open window and made a map on the floor, whereon slender shadows traced rivers, mountains and boundaries. In the trees outside, the night insects chirped, and bats darted and circled in the warm air. If only she could think that this made a difference. She was so weary of the struggle. The arguments which formerly sustained her had, with ceaseless iteration, lost their force; her battle-worn mind longed to throw down its arms in unconditional surrender. Her up-bringing had been so different; this thing was not regarded by the world in the same light as it appeared to her; was she over-strained, opinionated, censorious? Nesbit had called her so--was he right? Who was _she_, to set up her feeble judgment against the world's verdict--to condemn and criticise society's decision? Divorce must be--even Scripture allowed that; a limb must be sacrificed sometimes that a life might be saved. True, the process had always appeared to her, in her ignorance, an operation of cruel anguish, from which the patient came halt, or lame, or blind for life; but what if she should be wrong? What if the present crab-like propensity for the renewal of the missing part was the natural and sensible condition. This wicked woman--this wife who had recklessly thrown aside life's choicest gift--was happy; she had replaced her lopped-off limb with a new one, and it was well with her. Norma had said long ago that, "any woman who trifled with her happiness because of a scruple was a fool." Was Norma right? Was her hesitation senseless, doltish folly? The boundaries of the moonlight shifted; a long irregular cape, like a shining finger, stretched out across the floor and touched the hem of her dress. From behind the screen in the fireplace came a little sound, as though a mouse were rustling fragments of torn paper.