"... I am leaving my husband. I can never explain it to you—please let the question rest—but Uncle Si will tell you I am right. It was necessary to tell him the truth and he admits my only course is a separation. There can never be any sort of a compromise, as long as I live, and I hope I shall never be obliged to see Philip Kingsley again. "I am starting home to Olympia with Uncle Si today, but if you know of anyone in the settlement who can take me in, with little Si, I would rather go out there and stay, until I can shape my plans. Possibly, when you give up the school, I may be able to fill your place as well as any. Uncle Silas, however, is urging me to go, at least for a time, to Washington. I own it will be hard to have you both so far away, and I am tempted by the security of a strange city, with the whole continent between me and—what is past." "Oh, Louise, my poor, sweet Louise, I’d love to see Phil Kingsley taught his lesson, but I know you, dear." Alice walked on the remaining distance to the falls. "You shall come and stay with me, as long as you want to, but you’re going to forgive him, yes, you are, the first time he asks it." Still, Louise had explained to the Judge; why should she find it more difficult to tell her? And just what was this reason, anyway? Then suddenly, in one great shock, the wedge which Stratton had tried to fix, drove home. She stood, white, tense, on the trembling ledge, and stared with unseeing eyes into the upper cataract. Its thunder and passion were lost in the greater forces that engulfed her. All that Stratton had said in their last interview, his whole monstrous story, rejected hitherto, surged back, statement on statement, and compelled her belief. She saw now what that friendly intimacy of nearly two years, in that isolated place, must have meant to both Louise and Forrest. How she had created for him his only social and home life; how, day after day, countless times each day, she must have felt his quiet sympathy, helpfulness, in sharp contrast to the neglect and irresponsibility of Philip. And they had played, sung, innumerable evenings together; no man on earth could so appreciate her beautiful voice, her personal sweetness; and she had always loved his violin. How could she—how could any woman—have remained indifferent? And he—how could he help forgetting there were other women in the world? All men, good, strong men, had their fancies when they were boys in school; it was afterwards that they found the right, the one woman.