She caught sight of one at last from Marcus Aurelius as if she had been looking for it. The wisdom of it did not apply to her case, but it soothed her for that reason, because she remembered it as an exit she used to take from her unhappy thoughts during those first months of her unnatural widowhood. When you are bedridden within by a secret grief, these old negative philosophers are very good drug doctors for your complaints. This is why so many miserable women take to the narcotics of theosophy and other forms of recumbent mysticisms. They are mental opiates. “Good morning, Mrs. Cutter! Glad to see you back here,” the night clerk said, smiling sleepy-eyed at her as she approached the desk. He swung the register around and offered her a pen. “You received my wire?” she asked, when she had written her name. “Yes, and fortunately we were able to reserve the same room for you,” he answered, evidently referring to a request which she had wired. “Shall you want a car, as usual, Mrs. Cutter?” he called after her as she was about to enter the elevator. “Not until this afternoon. How are the roads?” “Very good, at least your favorite one is,” he assured her. She had come to this Inn immediately after Cutter left her the previous year. She had recovered her health of mind and strength of body in this quiet place; she had profited by the patterns of peace and imagination it afforded; and she had spent much time visiting fine old houses, studying the manners, ways and clothes of the people who came and went. She acquired for the first time in her life some feeling and sense of elegance, lines and colors. And it was here that she met the architect who drew the plans for remodeling her house at Shannon. She resumed her old diversions now. She mingled little with the other guests, but spent her time driving about the country. She was still oppressed by the rude awakening she had, that last day in Shannon, to the fact that she loved and longed for her husband. She was disturbed and humiliated by this revelation, as one is by the awakening of some weakness we believe we have outgrown. The issue constantly in her mind was whether, after all, it would not be wiser to give up her house in Shannon and live this idle, pleasant existence. There were no associations here to remind her of the past. And in spite of her huge expense in the effort to destroy these memories, it was after she came back to Shannon that the old pain and unhappiness had returned to overwhelm her. Then this issue was settled for her with a horrible, irrevocable decision, and she was flung violently back upon the one refuge, her house in Shannon, and the one plan she had for substituting love with affection, which she had been on the point of abandoning.