When Joan and Patricia arose the following day they confronted life as two criminals might who realized that their only safety lay in flight, and that they must escape without running risks.

Patricia shuddered when the first mail was delivered.  She rescued her own letter—­addressed to Joan—­and raised her heart in gratitude that no letter of angered remonstrance came from Burke.

But he might come; he might telegraph!

“My God!” Patricia exclaimed at noon time, “I cannot stand this, Joan, we must vacate.”

Joan was quivering with excitement, too—­she was wild-eyed and shook with terror at every step on the stairs.

Her ordeal of the day before had not merely devastated her beautiful dreams, but it had, in a marvellous fashion, created an entirely new outlook on life.  She felt that once she was safe from any possible chance of meeting Raymond, he might, spiritually, rise from the ashes and eventually overcome the impression that would cling in spite of all she could do.  Intellectually she understood—­but her hurt and shocked sensibilities shrank from bodily contact with one who had forced the fruit of knowledge so crudely upon her.  The youth in her seemed to have died, and it held all the charm and delight.  The woman of Joan made a plea for the man, but as yet he was a stranger.  More strange, even, than the unnamable creature who had, for an hour, while the storm raged, stood in her imagination like some evil thing between the woman who had not fully understood and the woman who was never again to misunderstand.

While she feared and trembled Joan could, already, recall the moment when Raymond began to gain the victory over his fallen self.  She knew that he was always to be the master in the future.  How she knew this she could not have explained, but she knew!  In all the years to come Raymond would be the better for that hour that proved to him his weakness.  And with this knowledge, poor Joan found comfort in her own part.  He and she had learned together the strength of their hidden foes.  She realized with a sense of hot remorse that she had wanted freedom not so much for the opportunity of expressing that which was fine and worth while, but that which she, herself, had not been conscious of.

But she had been awakened in time.  She, like Raymond, had faced her worst self, and now the most desirable thing to do was to get away.  Anywhere, separated from all that had led to the shock, she would look back and forward and know herself well enough to make the next step a safer one.

To go with Patricia for a few months would not interfere with her winter plans; so she decided not to write fully to Doris, but to state merely that she was going to see Patricia settled in her new venture—­or, should the business not appeal, bring Patricia back with her.

“But,” she said to Patricia while they restlessly moved about the studio, “what can we do about—­this,” Joan spread her arms wide, “the furniture and all Syl’s beloved things?”