So Mrs.Pry departed, and Ethie was alone with the terrible calamity which had come upon her.

She had been at the Water Cure long enough to know that not more than half of what she heard was true, and this story she knew was false in the parts pertaining to herself and her desertion of her husband.

She had never heard before that she was suspected of having had an associate in the flight, and her cheeks crimsoned at the idea, while she wondered if Richard had ever thought that of her.

Not at first, she knew, else he had never sought for her so zealously as Aunt Barbara had intimated; but latterly, as he had heard no tidings from her, he might have surmised something of the kind, and that was the secret of the divorce.
"Oh, Richard! Richard!" she murmured, with her hands pressed tightly over her lips, so as to smother all sound, "I felt so sure of your love.
You were so different from me.

I am punished more than I can bear." If she had never known before, Ethie knew now, how much she really loved her husband, and how the hope of eventually returning to him had been the day-star of her life.