Her mind whirled like a merry-go-round:  “Well, I knew he was hiding something.  I wish I had seen Doctor Nelson, and asked him where she lives.  I wonder if he’s the Mortons’ friend?...  If I don’t get that yeast cake to Mary before lunch, she can’t set the rolls....  Edith saw her with a child five years ago.  Why”—­her mind stumbled still farther back—­“why, the very day Edith arrived in Mercer, Maurice had been looking at some house in Medfield, where the tenant had a sick child.  That was why he was late in meeting Mrs. Houghton!...  The child had measles.  I wish I had gone to see Doctor Nelson!  Then I would have known....  I can get some rolls at the bakery, and Mary needn’t set them for dinner.  I sang ‘O Spring.’” She put her hands over her face, but there were no tears.  “He kissed the earth, he was so happy.  When did he stop being happy?  What made him stop?...  I wonder if there are any snakes here?—­Oh, I must think what to do!” Again her mind flew off at so violent a tangent that she felt dizzy.  “I didn’t tell Mary what to have for dinner....  He gave her his coat, that time when the boat upset....  She was all painted, he said so.”  She picked three strands of grass and began to braid them together:  “He did that; he made the ring, and put it over my wedding ring.”  Mechanically she opened her pocketbook, and took out the little envelope, shabby now, with years of being carried there.  She lifted the flap, and looked at the crumbling circle.  Then she put it back again, carefully, and went on with her toilsome thinking:  “I’ll tell him I know that he went to see the Dale woman. ...  He said we had been married fifty-four minutes.  It’s eight years and one month.  He thinks I’m old.  Well, I am.  That woman in the car thought I was her mother’s age, and she must have been thirty!  Why did he stop loving me?  He hates Mary’s cooking.  He said Edith could make soup out of a paving stone and a blade of grass.  Edith is rude to me about music, and he doesn’t mind!  How vulgar girls are, nowadays.  Oh—­I hate her!...  Mary’ll give notice if I say anything about her soup.”

Suddenly through this welter of anger and despair a small, confused thought struggled up; it was so unexpected that she actually gasped:  He hadn’t quite lied to her!  “There was office business!” Some real-estate transfer must have been put through, because—­“Mrs. Dale had moved”!  In her relief, Eleanor burst into violent crying; he had not entirely lied!  To be sure, he didn’t say that the woman whom he had gone “from the office” to see, the woman who rented the house, was Mrs. Dale; in that, he had not been frank; he kept the name back—­but that was only a reserve!  Only a harmless secrecy.  There was nothing wrong in renting a house to the Dale woman!  As Eleanor said this to herself, it was as if cool water flowed over flame-licked flesh.  Yes; he didn’t talk to her as he did to Edith of business matters; he didn’t tell her about