This was sad news to Salome, and she tried to think that her husband’s time was so fully occupied with his father that he had not been able to write; but she hoped the next steamer would bring her a letter, and she resolved to be patient and try not to grieve. Two or three days went by, and matters seemed to have settled themselves a little more pleasantly. Madam did not once refer to disagreeable subjects, was even distantly gracious, and Salome fondly hoped that all hostilities were at an end. But she did not know the determined woman. She had laid her plot to rid her son of the wife whom she suspected and disliked, and she was not one to swerve from her purpose. She had already begun her work by suppressing every letter that came for or went from Salome. She had also written a very crafty letter to Dr. Winthrop, in which she mentioned that she had suddenly fainted one day when making her a little visit in her room; that she still seemed more delicate than usual, and she was quite anxious about her. She had informed him, also, of the suspicious meeting between his wife and the strange man. “We feared at first,” she wrote regarding her ill health, “that it might be caused by the old heart trouble, although her symptoms did not indicate it; but since then Evelyn and I have not felt quite well, and this fact, together with a certain odor that seems to pervade the house, has led me to fear there is a flaw in the plumbing, which allows the escape of sewer-gas; you know we had an experience of this kind in the old home some years ago. I had a talk with Salome, and tried to persuade her to go home with us, but she seems determined to remain here until your return. She did not appear to receive my proposition in a very friendly spirit, and very resolutely said that nothing but an express message from you to that effect would induce her to leave the house. Pray do not think that I wish to interfere in your domestic arrangements, my son, but really I feel that it would be safest for the comfort and welfare of all parties if we could leave the house at once, and close it until you can return and attend personally to whatever may be wrong.” It of course took eight or nine days for this missive to reach Dr. Winthrop, and during this time Salome heard nothing from him, except indirectly through letters which madam or Evelyn received from Norman, his brother. Madam did not mean that she should have one word from him until she received her notice to leave his house, which, she felt sure, would come in the form of a brief cable message, since he surely would not risk her health long enough to wait for a letter to reach her. This she believed would so wound her proud, sensitive nature, and work in with her own crafty innuendoes regarding the illegality of her marriage, that she would do something desperate.