upon her woman's
pictures as she saw them in her mind. The wonders of that scene of
natural splendor laid out before her had no power to penetrate the
armor of her preoccupation. All her mind and heart were stirred and
torn by emotions such as only a woman can understand, only a woman can
feel. The ancient battle of titanic forces, which had brought into
existence that world of stupendous might upon which her unseeing eyes
gazed, was as nothing, it seemed, to the passionate struggle going on
in her torn heart. To her there was nothing beyond her own regretful
misery, her own dread of the future, her passionate revulsion at
thoughts of the past.

The truth was, she had not yet found the happiness she had promised
herself, that had been promised to her. She had left behind her all
that life which, when it had been hers, she had hated. Her passionate
nature had drawn her whither its stormy waves listed. And now that the
tempest was passed, and the driving forces had ceased to urge, leaving
her in a rock-bound pool of reflection, she saw the enormity of the
step she had taken, she realized the strength of Nature's tendrils
which still bound her no less surely.

The mild face of Scipio haunted her. She saw in her remorseful fancy
his wondering blue eyes filled with the stricken look of a man
powerless to resent, powerless to resist. She read into her thought
the feelings of his simple heart which she had so wantonly crushed.
For she knew his love as only a woman can. She had probed its depth
and found it fathomless--fathomless in its devotion to herself. And
now she had thrown him and his love, the great legitimate love of the
father of her children, headlong out of her life.

A dozen times she bolstered her actions with the assurance that she
did not want his love, that he was not the man she had ever cared
for seriously, could ever care for. She told herself that the
insignificance of his character, his personality, were beneath
contempt. She desired a man of strength for her partner, a man who
could make himself of some account in the world which was theirs.

No, she did not want Scipio. He was useless in the scheme of life, and
she did not wish to have to "mother" her husband. Far rather would she
be the slave of a man whose ruthless domination extended even to
herself. And yet Scipio's mild eyes haunted her, and stirred something
in her heart that maddened her, and robbed her of all satisfaction in
the step she had