This done, she dismissed the matter from her mind with a quickness which would have been impossible to any woman who was not absolutely innocent of wrong-doing. A clear conscience is never disturbed by outside slanders, and a straightforward life is never thrust out of its clean onward course by a scandalmonger’s sneer. Besides, Delicia’s thoughts were too much occupied with her broken idols to dwell long on any other subject of contemplation. All she desired for the moment was rest—a space of silence in which to think calmly and to brace her spirit up to the necessary fortitude required for the realisation of what she must expect to endure for the remainder of her life. She took some quiet rooms facing the sea, telegraphed her address to her husband, and then prepared to settle down for a few days of serious meditation. She began to consider her position with a logical steadiness worthy of any and all or her ‘dear old Pagans,’ as she called Socrates and the rest of his school,—and with a mingling of timidity and resolve tried the measure of her feminine strength, as a warrior might try his weapon, against the opposing evils which confronted her. The greatest loss that can befall a woman had befallen her—the loss of love. Her love had been deep and passionate, but the object of that love had proved himself unworthy—hence love was dead and would never revive again. This was the first clause of the argument, and it had to be mastered thoroughly. Next came the fact that, notwithstanding the death of love, she, Delicia, was bound to the corpse of that perished passion—bound by the marriage tie and also by the law, which has generously provided that a husband may be guilty of infidelity to his wife every day and every hour of the day, without her having any right to punish or to leave him unless he treats her with ‘cruelty,’ his unfaithfulness not being judged by the so admirable law as ‘cruel.’ By no means—oh, no!—not at all! When it comes to blows, face-scratching and hair-tearing, then ‘cruelty’ can be complained of; but the slow breaking of a heart, the torturing of delicate nerve-fibres on the rack of mental and moral outrage, the smile which is an insult, the condescending tolerance which is an affront, the conventional keeping up of appearances which is a daily lie—all this has no touch of ‘cruelty’ at all about it—not in the very least! ‘Therefore,’ argued Delicia, with a fine disdain, ‘unless he ever takes it into his head to beat me, or fire a pistol at me, I have no cause of complaint against him, and must not complain. Then must I play the hypocrite and pretend to worship him still? No! That I cannot do; that I will not do. Perhaps he will agree to a separation—’ she paused and her face darkened; ‘if I make it financially worth his while!’