She tried again to picture her new life. Her friends, of course, would rally about her. But the prospect left her cold; she did not want them to rally. She wanted only one thing--the life she had been living before she had given her baby the embroidered bag to play with. Oh, why had she given him the bag? She had been so happy, they had all been so happy! Every nerve in her clamored for her lost happiness, angrily, unreasonably, as the boy had clamored for his bag! It was horrible to know too much; there was always blood in the foundations. Parents “kept things” from children--protected them from all the dark secrets of pain and evil. And was any life livable unless it were thus protected? Could any one look in the Medusa’s face and live? But why should she leave the house, since it was hers? Here, with her boy and Andora, she could still make for herself the semblance of a life. It was Deering who would have to go; he would understand that as soon as he saw the letters. She pictured him in the act of going--leaving the house as he had left it just now. She saw the gate closing on him for the last time. Now her vision was acute enough: she saw him as distinctly as if he were in the room. Ah, he would not like returning to the old life of privations and expedients! And yet she knew he would not plead with her. Suddenly a new thought rushed through her mind. What if Andora had rushed to him with the tale of the discovery of the letters--with the “Fly, you are discovered!” of romantic fiction? What if he _had_ left her for good? It would not be unlike him, after all. Under his wonderful gentleness he was always evasive and inscrutable. He might have said to himself that he would forestall her action, and place himself at once on the defensive. It might be that she _had_ seen him go out of the gate for the last time.