't go on with my
present life either. It's hateful--as hateful as the other. If I don't
go home I've got to decide on something different."

"What do you mean by 'something different'?" She was silent, and he
insisted: "Are you really thinking of marrying Chelles?"

She started as if he had surprised a secret. "I'll never forgive you if
you speak of it--"

"Good Lord! Good Lord!" he groaned.

She remained motionless, with lowered lids, and he went up to her and
pulled her about so that she faced him. "Undine, honour bright--do you
think he'll marry you?"

She looked at him with a sudden hardness in her eyes. "I really can't
discuss such things with you."

"Oh, for the Lord's sake don't take that tone! I don't half know what
I'm saying...but you mustn't throw yourself away a second time. I'll do
anything you want--I swear I will!"

A knock on the door sent them apart, and a servant entered with a
telegram.

Undine turned away to the window with the narrow blue slip. She was glad
of the interruption: the sense of what she had at stake made her want to
pause a moment and to draw breath.

The message was a long cable signed with Laura Fairford's name. It told
her that Ralph had been taken suddenly ill with pneumonia, that his
condition was serious and that the doctors advised his wife's immediate
return.

Undine had to read the words over two or three times to get them into
her crowded mind; and even after she had done so she needed more time to
see their bearing on her own situation. If the message had concerned
her boy her brain would have acted more quickly. She had never troubled
herself over the possibility of Paul's falling ill in her absence, but
she understood now that if the cable had been about him she would have
rushed to the earliest steamer. With Ralph it was different. Ralph was
always perfectly well--she could not picture him as being suddenly at
death's door and in need of her. Probably his mother and sister had had
a panic: they were always full of sentimental terrors. The next moment
an angry suspicion flashed across her: what if the cable were a device
of the Marvell women to bring her back? Perhaps it had been sent
with Ralph's connivance! No doubt Bowen had written home about
her--Washington Square had received some monstrous report of her
doings!... Yes, the cable was clearly an echo of Laura's letter--mother
and daughter had cooked it up to spoil her pleasure. Once the thought
had occurr