But Mrs.Bunker heard no more.

She turned and ran down the staircase, carrying with her a burning cheek and blazing eye that somewhat startled the complacent official.
She did not remember how she got home again.

She had a vague recollection of passing through the crowded streets, wondering if the people knew that she was an outcast, deserted by her husband, deceived by her ideal hero, repudiated by her friends! Men had gathered in knots before the newspaper offices, excited and gesticulating over the bulletin boards that had such strange legends as "The Crisis," "Details of an Alleged Conspiracy to Overthrow the Government," "The Assassin of Henderson to the Fore Again," "Rumored Arrests on the Mexican Frontier." Sometimes she thought she understood the drift of them; even fancied they were the outcome of her visit--as if her very presence carried treachery and suspicion with it--but generally they only struck her benumbed sense as a dull, meaningless echo of something that had happened long ago.

When she reached her house, late that night, the familiar solitude of shore and sea gave her a momentary relief, but with it came the terrible conviction that she had forfeited her right to it, that when her husband came back it would be hers no longer, and that with their meeting she would know it no more.

For through all her childish vacillation and imaginings she managed to cling to one steadfast resolution.