and--good-by;" nor
could she pass over the half-threat in the words that had gone before
the leave-taking. To what deeper depth despicable could he plunge,
having already sounded the deepest of them all--that of unfaith, of
infidelity alike to the woman he had wronged and to the woman he
professed to love?

At dinner-time she sent word to her grandfather and her cousin that she
was not feeling well, which was a mild paraphrasing of the truth, and
had a piece of toast and a cup of tea sent to her room. The bare thought
of going down to the great dining-room and sitting through the hour-long
dinner was insupportable. She made sure every eye would see the shame in
her face.

With the toast and tea the servant brought the evening paper, sent up by
a doting Major Caspar, thoughtful always for her comfort. A marked item
in the social gossip transfixed her as if it had been an arrow. The
Farleys had sailed from Southampton, and the house renovators were
already busy at Warwick Lodge.

After that the toast proved too dry to be eaten and the tea took on the
taste of bitter herbs. Vincent Farley was returning, coming to claim the
fulfilment of her promise. She had never loved him; she knew it as she
had not known it before; and that was dreadful enough. But now there
were a thousand added pangs to go with the conviction. For in the
interval love had been found--found and lost in the same moment--and the
solid earth was still reeling at the shock.

Ardea of the strong heart and the calm inner vision had always had a
feeling bordering on contempt for women of the hysterical type; yet now
she felt herself trembling and slipping on the brink of the pit she had
derided.

The third day brought surcease of a certain sort. In the Gallic blood
there is ever a trace of fatalism; the shrug is its expression. It was
generations back to the D'Aubignes, yet now and then some remote
ancestor would reach up out of the shadowy past to lay a compelling
finger on the latest daughter of his race. Her word was passed, beyond
honorable recall. Somewhere and in some way she would find the courage
to tell Vincent that she did not love him as the wife should love the
husband; and if he should still exact the price, she would pay it. After
all, it would be a refuge, of a kind.

Now it is human nature to assume finalities and to base conduct on the
assumption. Conversely, it is not in human nature to tighten one knot
without loosening another. Hav