All through the long ride home she pondered upon the past and upon the possibilities of the future. Not till after Jack was safely tucked away in his bed, not till Hepsie had her supper work done and had gone upstairs and all the various members of her household had retired for the night, and she was certain of hours for uninterrupted thinking, did Elizabeth Hunter bring out the unopened letter and lay it on the table before her. Even then she renewed her vow before she broke the seal. Was he the old John, who would fly out impulsively and cover them all with disgrace if she told him? she asked herself many times. In a cold sweat of terror, she asked herself also if it were possible to build right in this new endeavour without telling John of the love which she had shown to Hugh; the temptation was terrible, but she was compelled to shake her head. The habit of openness and fair dealing would not hold her excused; there was no other way, she must tell it out. Carefully she went over all the things that would be lost if this story should be bruited abroad. Jack would be disgraced, she would be stripped of her influence in the neighbourhood, slain in the sight of her friends who had fought her battles for her because they believed in her, stripped of everything which had gone to make life worth the living, and she would place herself in the power of a man whose only attitude toward the story might be one of self-righteous justification. Was it worth the price? Her own words rose up before her, "Without honesty no other virtue is a virtue at all." Elizabeth pondered a long time, and again her own words rose up to confront her, "It does not matter _who_ is wrong, the thing that matters is _what_ is wrong," and for Elizabeth there was no escape. This had been the philosophy of her life; she was called upon to stand or fall on that ground. With her head bowed in acknowledgment, she drew the missive out of its envelope and began to read: