she was not quite certain what she meant to do.  She had been sorely wounded, and, as she thought, without just cause.  She knew she was to blame for not having told Richard of Frank before she became his wife, but of the things with which he had so severely charged her she was guiltless, and every nerve quivered and throbbed with passion and resentment as she recalled the scene of the previous night, going over again with the cruel words Richard had uttered in his jealous anger, and then burning with shame and indignation as she thought of being locked in her room, and kept from attending the masquerade, where her absence must have excited so much wonder.

“What did they say, and what can I tell them when we meet?” she thought, just as Mrs. Howard’s voice was heard in the upper hall.

Church was out, and several of the more intimate of Ethie’s friends had stopped at the Stafford House to inquire into so strange a proceeding.

“Come to see if you were sick, or what, that you disappointed me so.  I was vexed enough, I assure you,” Mrs. Miller said, looking curiously enough at Ethelyn, whose face was white as ashes, save where a crimson spot burned on her cheeks, and whose lips were firmly pressed together.

She did not know what to say, and when pressed to give a reason stammered out: 

“Judge Markham wished me to stay with him, and as an obedient wife I stayed.”

With ready tact the ladies saw that something was wrong, and kindly forbore further remarks, except to tell what a grand affair it was, and how much she was missed.  But Ethie detected in their manner an unspoken sympathy or pity, which exasperated and humiliated her more than open words would have done.  Heretofore she had been the envy of the entire set, and it wounded her deeply to fall from that pedestal to the level of ordinary people.  She was no longer the young wife, whose husband petted and humored her so much, but the wife whose husband was jealous and tyrannical, and even abusive, where language was concerned, and she could not rid herself of the suspicion that her lady friends knew more than they professed to know, and was heartily glad when they took their departure and left her again alone.

There was another knock at her door, and a servant handed in a card bearing Frank Van Buren’s name.  He was in the office, the waiter said.  Should he show the gentleman up?

Ethie hesitated a moment, and then taking her pencil wrote upon the back of the card, “I am too busy to see you to-day.”

The servant left the room, and Ethelyn went back to where her clothes were scattered about and the great trunk was standing open.  She did not care to see Frank Van Buren now.  He was the direct cause of every sorrow she had known, and bitter feelings were swelling in her heart in place of the softer emotions she had once experienced toward him.  He was nothing to her now.  Slowly but gradually the flame had been dying out, until Richard had nothing to dread from him, and he was never nearer to winning his wife’s entire devotion than on that fatal night when, by his jealousy and rashness, he built so broad a gulf between them.