After a while she went slowly upstairs.  She dragged a little trunk from a hall closet, and began quietly, methodically, to pack it with her own clothes.  Now and then her breast rose with a great sob, but she controlled herself instantly.

“This can’t go on,” she said aloud to herself.  “It’s not today—­it’s not to-morrow—­but it’s for all time.  I can’t keep this up.  I can’t worry and apologize, and neglect George, and hurt Mamma’s feelings for the rest of my life.  Mamma has always done her best for me, and I never saw George until five years ago—­

“It’s not,” she went on presently, “as if I were a woman who takes marriage lightly.  I have tried.  But I won’t desert Mamma.  And I won’t—­I will not!—­endure having George talk to me as he did today!”

She would go down to the children, she would rest, she would read again during the quiet evenings.  Days would go by, weeks.  But finally George would write her—­would come to her.  He must.  What else could he do?

Something like terror shook her.  Was this the way serious, endless separations began between men and their wives?  Her mind flitted sickly to other people’s troubles:  the Waynes, who had separated because Rose liked gayety and Fred liked domestic peace; the Gardiners, who—­well, there never did seem to be any reason there.  Frances and the baby just went to her mother’s home, and stayed home, and after a while people said she and Sid had separated, though Frances said she would always like Sid as a friend—­not very serious reasons, these!  Yet they had proved enough.

Mary paused.  Was she playing with fire?  Ah, no, she told herself, it was very different in her case.  This was no imaginary case of “neglect” or “incompatibility.”  There was the living trouble,—­ Mamma.  And even if tonight she conceded this point to George, and Mamma was banished, sooner or later resentment, bitter and uncontrollable, would rise again, she knew, in her heart.  No.  She would go.  George might do the yielding.

Once or twice tears threatened her calm.  But it was only necessary to remind herself of what George had said to dry her eyes into angry brilliance again.  Too late now for tears.

At five o’clock the trunk was packed, but Mamma had not yet arrived.  There remained merely to wait for her, and to start with her for Beach Meadow.  Mary’s heart was beating fast now, but it was less with regret than with a nervous fear that something would delay her now.  She turned the key in the trunk lock and straightened up with the sudden realization that her back was aching.

For a moment she stood, undecided, in the centre of her room.  Should she leave a little note for George, “on his pincushion,” or simply ask Lizzie to say that she had gone to Beach Meadow?  He would not follow her there, she knew; George understood her.  He knew of how little use bullying or coaxing would be.  There would be no scenes.  She would be allowed to settle down to an existence that would be happy for Mamma, good for the children, restful—­free from distressing strain—­for Mary herself.