Following upon the prolonged strain of the preceding three months, that
last terrible scene with Roger had snapped her endurance. She could
not look back upon it without shuddering. Since the day of its
occurrence she had hardly spoken to him, except at meal times when, as
if by mutual consent, they both conversed as though nothing had
happened--for Lady Gertrude's benefit. Apart from this, Nan avoided
him as much as possible, treating him with a cool, indifferent reserve
he found difficult to break down. At least, he made no very determined
effort to do so. Perhaps he was even a little ashamed of himself. But
it was not in his nature to own himself wrong.

Like many men, he had a curiously implicit faith in the principle of
"letting things blow over." On occasion this may prove the wisest
course to adopt, but very rarely in regard to a quarrel between a man
and woman. Things don't "blow over" with a woman. They lie hidden in
her heart, gradually permeating her thoughts until her whole attitude
towards the man in question has hardened and the old footing between
them become irrecoverable.

Nan felt that she had made her effort--and failed. Roger had missed
the whole meaning of her attempt to bring about a mutual feeling of
good comradeship, brushed it aside as of no importance. And instead,
he had substituted his own imperious demands, rousing her, once the
stress of the actual interview itself was past, to fierce and bitter
revolt. No matter what happened in the future, she must get away
now--snatch a brief respite from the daily strain of her life at the
Hall.

But with an oddly persistent determination she put away from her all
thought of breaking off her engagement. To most women similarly
situated this would have been the obvious and simplest solution of the
problem. But it seemed to Nan that her compact with Roger demanded a
finer, more closely-knit interpretation of the word honour than would
have been necessary in the case of an engagement entered into under
different circumstances. The personal emergency which had driven her
into giving Roger her promise weighed heavily upon her, and she felt
that nothing less than his own consent would entitle her to break her
pledge to him. When she gave it she had thought she was buying safety
for herself and happiness for Penelope--cutting the tangled threads in
which she found herself so inextricably involved--and now, as Lord St.
John had reminded her,