They gave their affirmation solemnly, and the next day Honora appeared among them, pallid and courageous.  They were simple folk for all of their learning.  Sorrow was sorrow to them.  Honora was widowed by an accident more terrible than death.  No mockery, no affected solicitude detracted from the efficacy of their sympathy.  If they saw torments of jealousy in this betrayed woman’s eyes, they averted their gaze; if they saw shame, they gave it other interpretations.  Moreover, Kate was constantly beside her, eagle-keen for slight or neglect.  Her fierce fealty guarded the stricken woman on every side.  She had the imposing piano which Mary had rented carted back to the warehouse to lie in deserved silence with Mary’s seductive harmonies choked in its recording fibre; she stripped from their poles the curtains Mary had hung at the drawing-room windows and burned them in the furnace; the miniatures, the plaster casts, all the artistic rubbish which Mary’s exuberance had impelled her to collect, were tossed out for the waste wagons to cart away.  The coquetry of the room gave way to its old-time austerity; once more Honora’s room possessed itself.

* * * * *

A wire came from Karl Wander addressed to Kate.

“Fractured leg.  Can’t go to you.  Honora and the children must come here at once.  Have written.”

That seemed to give Honora a certain repose—­it was at least a spar to which to cling.  With Kate’s help she got over to the laboratory and put the finishing touches on things there.  The President detailed two of Fulham’s most devoted disciples to make a record of their professor’s experiments.

“Fulham shall have full credit,” the President assured Honora, calling on her and comforting her in the way in which he perceived she needed comfort.  “He shall have credit for everything.”

“He should have the Norden prize,” Honora cried, her hot eyes blazing above her hectic cheeks.  “I want him to have the prize, and I want to be the means of getting it for him.  I told Miss Barrington I meant to have my revenge, and that’s it.  How can he stand it to know he ruined my life and that I got the prize for him?  A generous man would find that torture!  You understand, I’m willing to torture him—­in that way.  He’s subtle enough to feel the sting of it.”

The President looked at her compassionately.

“It’s a noble revenge—­and a poignant one,” he agreed.

“It’s not noble,” repudiated Honora.  “It’s terrible.  For he’ll remember who did the work.”

But shame overtook her and she sobbed deeply and rendingly.  And the President, who had thought of himself as a mild man, left the house regretting that duels were out of fashion.

* * * * *

Then the letter came from the West.  Kate carried it up to Honora, who was in her room crouched before the window, peering out at the early summer cityscape with eyes which tried in vain to observe the passing motors, and the people hastening along the Plaisance, but which registered little.