And suddenly she started up. I saw in her eyes the light of old battles. “Oh, it was a horror!” she cried, beginning to pace the floor. “It seemed to me that I was living the agony of all the loveless marriages of the world. I felt myself pursued, not merely by the importunate desires of one man--I suffered with all the millions of women who give themselves night after night without love! He came to seem like some monster to me; I could not meet him unexpectedly without starting. I forbade him to mention the subject to me again, and for a long time he obeyed. But several weeks ago he brought it up afresh, and I lost my self-control completely. ‘Douglas,’ I said, ‘I can stand it no longer! It is not only the tragedy of my blind child--it’s that you have driven me to hate you. You have crushed all the life and joy and youth out of me! You’ve been to me like a terrible black cloud, constantly pressing down on me, smothering me. You stalk around me like a grim, sepulchral figure, closing me up in the circle of your narrow ideas. But now I can endure it no longer. I was a proud, high-spirited girl, you’ve made of me a colourless social automaton, a slave of your stupid worldly traditions. I’m turning into a feeble, complaining, discontented wife! And I refuse to be it. I’m going home--where at least there’s some human spontaneity left in people; I’m going back to my father!’--And I went and looked up the next steamer!” She stopped. She stood before me, with the fire of her wild Southern blood shining in her cheeks and in her eyes. I sat waiting, and finally she went on, “I won’t repeat all his protests. When he found that I was really going, he offered to take me in the yacht, but I wouldn’t go in the yacht. I had got to be really afraid of him--sometimes, you know, his obstinacy seems to be abnormal, almost insane. So then he decided he would have to go in the steamer with me to preserve appearances. I had a letter saying that papa was not well, and he said that would serve for an excuse. He is going to Castleman County, and after he has stayed a week or so, he is going off on a hunting-trip, and not return.” “And will he do it?” “I don’t think he expects to do it at present. I feel sure he has the idea of starting mamma to quoting the Bible to me, and dragging me down with her tears. But I have done all I can to make clear to him that it will make no difference. I told him I would not say a word about my intentions at home until he had gone away, and that I expected the same silence from him. But, of course--” She stopped abruptly, and after a moment she asked: “What do you think of it, Mary?” I leaned forward and took her two hands in mine. “Only,” I said, “that I’m glad you fought it out alone! I knew it had to come--and I didn’t want to have to help you to decide!”