She had thought the old dim horror over and done with.  Now she knew it never would be that; now she knew there was no escape.  The happy little castle she had builded for herself fell about her like a house of cards; she was dishonoured, she was abased, she was powerless.  In telling Jim her whole history, on that terrible night at the settlement house, she had flung down her arms; there was no new extenuating fact to add to the story; it was all stale and unchangeable; it must stand before their eyes forever, a hideous fact.  And it seemed to Julia, tossing restlessly in the dark, that a thousand sleeping menaces rose now to terrify her.  Perhaps Hannah Palmer knew!  Julia’s breath stopped, her whole body shook with terror.  And if Hannah, why not others?  A letter of Mark’s to some one—­to any one—­might be in existence now, waiting its hour to appear, and to disgrace her, and Jim, and all who loved them!

And was it for this, she asked herself bitterly, that she had so risen from the past, so studied and struggled and aspired?  Had she been mad all these years to forget the danger in which she stood, to imagine that she had buried her tragedy too deep for discovery?  Had she been mad to marry Jim, her dear, sweet, protecting old Jim, who was always so good to her?

But at the thought of him, and of her bitter need of him in this desolate hour, Julia fell to violent crying, and after her tears she drifted into a deep sleep, her lashes wet, and her breast occasionally rising with a sharp sigh as a child’s might.

When she awakened, dawn was breaking, the level waste of the sea was pearl colour and rose under a slowly rising mist.  Julia bathed and dressed, and went out to the deck, where, with a great plaid wrapped about her, she might watch the miracle of the birth of day.  And as the warming rays of the sun enveloped her, and the newly washed decks dried under its touch, and as signs of life began to be heard all about, slamming doors and gay greetings, laughter and the crisp echoes of feet, hope and self-confidence crept again into her heart.  She was young, after all, and pretty, and Jim’s very agony of jealousy only proved that he loved her.  She had never deceived him, he could not accuse her of one second’s weakness there.  He had only had a sudden, terrible revelation of the truth he had known so long; it could not affect him permanently.

“Going down?” said a voice gayly.

Julia turned to smile upon a group of cheerful acquaintances.

“Thinking about it,” she smiled.

“Where’s Himself?” somebody asked.

“Still asleep—­the lazy bones!” Julia answered calmly.  They all went downstairs together, and Julia was perhaps a little ashamed to find the odours of coffee and bacon delightful, and to enjoy her breakfast.

Afterward she went straight to her room, not at all surprised to find Jim there, flung, dressed as he was, across his bed, and breathing heavily.  Julia studied him for a moment in silence.  Then she set about the somewhat difficult task of rousing him, quite her capable wifely little self when there was something she could do for him.