"What shall I do?" she repeated, looking imploringly at him.
"But if you have made up your mind already—" he hesitated.
"Not to go back? Oh, yes.... But where shall I go?"
"Why, I should think—to your parents. Where else could you go?"
Now she was silent, and an expression of profound dislike and unwillingness made her face sullen. She dropped Hilary's hand and sat looking at the fire. Then suddenly she began to weep violently.
It was long before she could control herself again. Then she was quiet, crouched before the fire, staring at it with a look of despair.
Indeed the foundations of her life seemed to have crumbled under her. She had a lost, helpless feeling. Something had been violently wrenched away from her—a support that she had thought secure. She had never thought that Laurence could fail her, she had been sure of him. But he had deceived, betrayed her confidence. He had wounded her pride in him and in herself, to the death. She hated his sin, she despised him for it. What she had seen filled her with loathing. Never would she forgive him.
But now—what could she do? How make her life over again? Take her children and go back to her parents, as Hilary suggested? A woman separated from her husband—what a humiliating position for her! A public confession of failure! How could she go to her parents and tell them that she had made a mistake, that their opposition to her marriage was justified? And the comments of her little world, how could she bear those, she who had always stood so proudly above criticism? No matter what the reason for the separation, a woman who left her husband was always criticized. And she did not want to give her reason—not to any one, not even to her parents. She wanted nobody to know. Rather would she bury the events of this night in darkness....