John Boswell and Master Farwell were gone to the In-Place. The sanctuary
overlooking the river was closed. There was no one, no place, to which
Priscilla could go for comfort and advice, and her secret and her duty
left her no peace or rest.

She had taken a tiny suite in a family hotel. The rooms had the comfort
needed for her physical wants, but she tossed on the bed nights and slept
brokenly. She ate poorly and grew very thin, very pale. She walked, days,
until her body cried out for mercy. She cancelled her engagement, for she
was unfitted for service, and intuitively she knew that, for her, a great
change was near.

When she was weak from weariness and lonely to the verge of exhaustion,
she thought of Kenmore--not Travers--with positive yearning. The woman
of her, madly defending, or about to defend, woman, excluded even her own
love and her own man. It was sex against sex; the world's injustice
against all that woman held sacred! If Margaret were to be sacrificed, so
was she, for she blindly felt that Travers would not uphold her! How
could he when tradition held him captive? How could he when his oath
bound him like a slave? Doctor Hapgood had done his part, had spoken his
word--to man! But that was not enough. Man had flaunted it, was willing
to take--the chance without giving the woman intelligent choice. Oh! it
was cruel, it was unjust, and it must be defied. She and Margaret must
stand side by side, or life never again would taste sweet and pure!

Priscilla had not heard from Travers in ten days, and this added to her
sense of desolation. Then, one evening, coming in from a long tramp in
the park, snow covered and bedraggled, she faced him in her own little
parlour!