s though it were alive and were being strangled and were
writhing. She spoke with entire quietness:

"After all that I have seen to-night, are you not going to marry
Rowan?"

Isabel stirred listlessly as with remembrance of a duty:

"I had forgotten, grandmother, that I owe you an explanation. I
found, after all, that I should have to see Rowan again: there was
a matter about which I was compelled to speak with him. That is
all I meant by being with him to-night: everything now is ended
between us."

"And you are going away without giving me the reason of all this?"

Isabel gathered her gloves and shawl together and said with simple
distaste:

"Yes."

As she did so, Mrs. Conyers, suddenly beside herself with aimless
rage, raised one arm and hurled the necklace against the opposite
wall of the room. It leaped a tangled braid through the air and as
it struck burst asunder, and the stones scattered and rattled along
the floor and rolled far out on the carpet.

She turned and putting up a little white arm, which shook as though
palsied, began to extinguish the lights. Isabel watched her a
moment remorsefully:

"Good night, grandmother, and good-by. I am sorry to go away and
leave you angry."

As she entered her room, gray light was already creeping in through
the windows, left open to the summer night. She went mournfully to
her trunk. The tray had been lifted out and placed upon a chair
near by. The little tops to the divisions of the tray were all
thrown back, and she could see that the last thing had been packed
into its place. Her hand satchel was open on her bureau, and she
could see the edge of a handkerchief and the little brown wicker
neck of a cologne bottle. Beside the hand satchel were her purse,
baggage checks, and travelling ticket: everything was in readiness.
She looked at it all a long time:

"How can I go away? How can I, how can I?"

She went over to her bed. The sheet had been turned down, the
pillow dented for her face. Beside the pillow was a tiny
reading-stand and on this was a candle and a book--with thought of
her old habit of reading after she had come home from pleasures
like those of to-night--when they were pleasures. Beside the book
her maid had set a little cut-glass vase of blossoms which had
opened since she put them there--were just opening now.

"How can I read? How can I sleep?"

She crossed to a large window opening on the lawn in the rear of
the house