Let me have the beginning, progress and consummation of the sad misunderstanding." While yet under the government of blind passion, ere her husband returned from the drive which Irene had refused to take with him, she had, acting from a sudden suggestion that came to her mind, left her room and, taking the cars, passed down to Albany, where she remained until morning at one of the hotels.

In silence and loneliness she had, during the almost sleepless night that followed, ample time for reflection and repentance.

And both came, with convictions of error and deep regret for the unwise, almost disgraceful step she had taken, involving not only suffering, but humiliating exposure of herself and husband.

But it was felt to be too late now to look back.

Pride would have laid upon her a positive interdiction, if other considerations had not come in to push the question of return aside.
In the morning, without partaking of food, Irene left in the New York boat, and passed down the river toward the home from which she had gone forth, only a few days before, a happy bride--returning with the cup, then full of the sweet wine of life, now brimming with the bitterest potion that had ever touched her lips.
And so she had come back to her father's house.