Cecily sat in her bedroom on the edge of her bed, her hands folded in her lap. Mechanically she had taken her hat and veil from the wardrobe, and as mechanically laid them aside, forgetting she was going out. Presently she wandered into the drawing-room, and began to walk up and down. Misery, jealousy, loneliness, had shrunk away before a sort of cold anger and contempt; a longing to be free, to shake off forever a yoke that had become hateful; to have the power to become _herself_ once more. Should she tell Robert she knew? Should she demand her freedom, and go? Part of her nature leaped at the thought. It would so simplify the struggle. She could go away, immerse herself in work, force herself to forget. Thus she would so easily spare herself humiliation, the sight of the woman she hated in her own house, at her husband’s side. “And why should I stay? Why should I?” she clamored to one of the other women within her. “He doesn’t love me. He doesn’t want me.... Not now.” “But some day he will want you,” another voice unexpectedly returned. “What then? Am I to wait meekly till he’s tired of her? Am I to be at hand to console him in the intervals of his love affairs?” She heard herself break into a short, scornful laugh, and almost before it ceased the other self had spoken. “Think of him wanting you--and suppose you were not there? You know how he would look. Picture it. Could you bear it? _Can_ you go?” All at once the room swam before her in a mist of tears, and she knew she could not. She went to the window and pushed it wider open. Before her, springing like a long-stemmed flower towards the blue of the sky, was the campanile of Westminster Cathedral. Behind its rose-pink summit white clouds drifted, and round it circled white pigeons. It was a tower that Cecily had learned to love, its very incongruity in the midst of London roofs appealing to her imagination. It was an exotic flower, blossoming radiantly above the gray heart of London. She looked at it to-day with a fresh sense of its beauty. It affected her like the glamour of an Eastern story. With a keen sense of gratitude she realized that beauty once more had power to thrill her. She remembered how at the Priory last year the blue sky had been hateful, the sunshine vain. “I’m getting better,” she half whispered. “When it doesn’t matter at all, any more, I shall be well. Perhaps some day I shall be well.” The thought brought a great wave of consolation. She went quickly into her bedroom, put on her hat and gloves, and without waiting for the lift, walked downstairs.