She was perilously near to weeping. She felt that if she did not escape immediately she would break down in front of him, and that was the last thing she desired to happen. But he would not let her go at once. He detained her while he put further questions to her relative to Steele. Had she made any arrangement to meet him again? That was a suspicion which had jerked itself into his mind and would not be dislodged. He was jealous of the man. It was jealousy which had lashed him to his mood of unreasonable anger; it was jealousy which prompted him to ask this question of her, though in his heart he did not believe her capable of that. "What do you take me for?" she demanded fiercely, and shook off his detaining hand as if it stung her. "I am going away in order to avoid meeting him. Oh! let me go. I can't stand any more to-night. If you had been wise you would have kept silent and let me bury this thing in the most secret place of my heart. There are things one ought not to speak of." "I have a right to your full confidence," he said. "Ah!" she cried, and brushed a tear away. "If you only knew how much you lose in insisting on your rights!" With which she left him to his reflections, and went quickly from the room. CHAPTER THIRTY SIX. It was strange that in this bitter crisis of her life the old home, from which she had longed so impatiently to escape in the days of her impulsive girlhood, should seem to Prudence a refuge from the distresses which now overwhelmed her. She wanted to return to her childhood's home, to her father, to the bedroom with its window facing south and the roses lifting their heads to the sunlight below the sill. These familiar pleasant things in their quiet beauty appealed to her irresistibly. There was a suggestion of peace in the homely picture, of escape from misunderstanding and worry and the near danger of a presence which she feared to face. Edward Morgan raised no objection to her going. Relations between himself and his wife were so strained since his unusual outburst of passion that he was relieved to be spared the awkwardness of daily intercourse for a time. A brief separation might more readily effect a reconciliation between them than the present hostile conditions of life together promised. His attitude of cold courtesy towards her, her silent aloofness, threatened to widen the distances irrevocably; and Mr Morgan had no desire for an open breach. It was his intention to patch up the quarrel. Prudence had not arrived at this stage. Her thought was solely for the present. She realised the urgent need to get away, to escape from Morningside, and from her husband and this life which had grown so painful to her.