During this interval Despard walked to the window and stood looking out. It is not always so easy to apply the knife psychologically as physically. He wondered if he could have been more gentle and equally effective. As he stood there Celia came sauntering across the lawn, her head bent, her hands deep in the pockets of an enveloping dun-colored coat. The brow which had first seemed sulky to him appeared now simply thoughtful. III The strength of Mrs. Royce’s character was shown by the fact that she obeyed--she actually went. She went almost gladly--a state of mind induced by the extraordinary activity of her last days at home. In one brilliant flash of prophecy and power she foresaw and forestalled every contingency that could arise in her absence. She departed in a condition of exhaustion fully justifying the doctor’s story of a needed rest. Her weariness lasted through the first few days at the sanatorium. She was well content to lie in bed and think of nothing. But by the fifth or sixth day she began to wonder where she had left the key of the cedar closet; and several possibilities of error in the arrangements she had made to reach from garret to cellar began to creep into her consciousness. Her elder boy was subject to throat trouble; her younger was subtly averse to bathing. She had not, perhaps, sufficiently emphasized these two dangers. She had, however, given her promise not to communicate with her household except in case of necessity. Conscientious in her determination to do what she had set out to do, she took out some of the books she had brought with her, but they seemed an unsatisfactory lot: the novels, trashy; the essays, dull; the history, heavy. Strange, she thought, how people will recommend books which really did not even hold one’s attention. The word attention, bringing with it the recollection of Despard’s speech, recalled her to her obligations. Heavy or not, she was resolved to make her way through the volume. She read: “It has been argued that the too rapid introduction of modern political machinery, and the too rapid unification of such different populations as those--” Had she told them not to keep the house too hot in these first spring days? Overheated houses, in her opinion, were a fruitful source of ill health. “--though these may with more justice be ascribed to deep-seated sociological causes stretching back through two thousand years--” This was the season for putting away the furs. If, in her absence, moths should attack her husband’s sable-lined overcoat! Ah, she put down her book; this was serious. Fifteen minutes later she went out, trying to walk off the haunting presence of that fur coat.