all the melodramatic plots I conceived, the muffled oars and the midnight visits to my Sylvia?  My sense of humour forbids it.  For a while now I shall take the hint and stay in the background of this story.  I shall tell the experiences of Sylvia as Sylvia herself told them to me long afterwards; saying no more about my own fate—­save that I swallowed my humiliation and took the next train to New York, a far sadder and wiser social-reformer!

BOOK III

SYLVIA AS REBEL

1.  Long afterwards Sylvia told me about what happened between her husband and herself; how desperately she tried to avoid discussing the issue with him—­out of her very sense of fairness to him.  But he came to her room, in spite of her protest, and by his implacable persistence he made her hear what he had to say.  When he had made up his mind to a certain course of action, he was no more to be resisted than a glacier.

“Sylvia,” he said, “I know that you are upset by what has happened.  I make every allowance for your condition; but there are some statements that I must be permitted to make, and there are simply no two ways about it—­you must get yourself together and hear me.”

“Let me see Mary Abbott!” she insisted, again and again.  “It may not be what you want—­but I demand to see her.”

So at last he said, “You cannot see Mrs. Abbott.  She has gone back to New York.”  And then, at her look of consternation:  “That is one of the things I have to talk to you about.”

“Why has she gone back?” cried Sylvia.

“Because I was unwilling to have her here.”

“You mean you sent her away?”

“I mean that she understood she was no longer welcome.”

Sylvia drew a quick breath and turned away to the window.

He took advantage of the opportunity to come near, and draw up a chair for her.  “Will you not pleased to be seated,” he said.  And at last she turned, rigidly, and seated herself.

“The time has come,” he declared, “when we have to settle this question of Mrs. Abbott, and her influence upon your life.  I have argued with you about such matters, but now what has happened makes further discussion impossible.  You were brought up among people of refinement, and it has been incredible to me that you should be willing to admit to your home such a woman as this—­not merely of the commonest birth, but without a trace of the refinement to which you have been accustomed.  And now you see the consequences of your having brought such a person into our life!”

He paused.  She made no sound, and her gaze was riveted upon the window-curtain.

“She happens to be here,” he went on, “at a time when a dreadful calamity befalls us—­when we are in need of the utmost sympathy and consideration.  Here is an obscure and terrible affliction, which has baffled the best physicians in the country; but this ignorant farmer’s wife considers that she knows all about it.  She proceeds to discuss it with every one—­sending your poor aunt almost into hysterics, setting the nurses to gossiping—­God knows what else she has done, or what she will do, before she gets through.  I don’t pretend to know her ultimate purpose—­blackmail, possibly——­”