!--We never dreamed that
such a thing could happen to us, and we regarded it as a disgrace.
But gradually--" she hesitated, and looked at the motionless
clergyman--"gradually I began to see Gertrude's point of view, to
understand that she had made a mistake, that she had been too young to
comprehend what she was doing. Victor Warren had been ruined by money,
he wasn't faithful to her, but an extraordinary thing has happened in
his case. He's married again, and Gertrude tells me he's absurdly happy,
and has two children."

As he listened, Hodder's dominating feeling was amazement that such a
course as her daughter had taken should be condoned by this middle-aged
lady, a prominent member of his congregation and the wife of a
vestryman, who had been nurtured and steeped in Christianity. And not
only that: Mrs. Constable was plainly defending a further step, which
in his opinion involved a breach of the Seventh Commandment! To have
invaded these precincts, the muddy, turbulent river of individualism had
risen higher than he would have thought possible....

"Wait!" she implored, checking his speech,--she had been watching him
with what was plainly anxiety, "don't say anything yet. I have a letter
here which she wrote me--at the time. I kept it. Let me read a part of
it to you, that you may understand more fully the tragedy of it."

Mrs. Constable thrust her hand into her lap and drew forth a thickly
covered sheet.

"It was written just after she left him--it is an answer to my protest,"
she explained, and began to read:

"I know I promised to love Victor, mother, but how can one promise to
do a thing over which one has no control? I loved him after he stopped
loving me. He wasn't a bit suited to me--I see that now--he was
attracted by the outside of me, and I never knew what he was like until
I married him. His character seemed to change completely; he grew morose
and quick-tempered and secretive, and nothing I did pleased him. We led
a cat-and-dog life. I never let you know--and yet I see now we might
have got along in any other relationship. We were very friendly when we
parted, and I'm not a bit jealous because he cares for another woman who
I can see is much better suited to him.

"'I can't honestly regret leaving him, and I'm not conscious of having
done anything wrong. I don't want to shock you, and I know how terribly
you and father must feel, but I can see now, somehow, that I had to go
through this experience