All this time, Carlisle had been taking upon herself most of the blame for the quarrel and break.  She had been distracted and unreasonable; she had never explained to Hugo sensibly how it had all happened; it was only natural that he should have misunderstood and misjudged, and in the end lost his temper and said hard things which he did not mean.  And he was suffering by it no less than she:  oh, be sure of that....  Now, as she sat alone in her bedroom, the newspaper crumpled on the floor beside her, there seemed to fall scales from her eyes, and she saw how bitterly she had deceived herself.  Where was now the love pledged to last forever?  Six weeks parted from her, and gaily gallivanting at the slipper-toes of happier girls, whom the breath of trouble had not touched.

Not even in this moment did Carlisle tax her once-betrothed with moral wrong in the matter of the “telling,” for that whole episode had remained in her mind rather a flare-up of mysterious emotions than a case of religious “conviction of sin” and atonement.  Probably Hugo had said and done what he thought was right then.  But now it was clear to her, as by a flash, that he had done wrong in quite a different way, that he had committed the deadly sin of love.  He had deserted her in the moment of her greatest need of him.  At the first pinch his boasted mighty love had broken down; and, beneath all the disguises, it was such a contemptible little pinch at that, only that he was afraid of what people might say about her.  Now he stepped the beaches of France, a squire of dames unconcerned.  Should she wear her heart in mourning for a light-o’-love and a jilt?  She would not.  She would not....

Easier said than done, no doubt.  Yet Cally’s thoughts had at least received a powerful new twist, which is the beginning of reconstruction.  And it was only a day or two later that mamma in her turn received an arousing blow, in that debasing of her by the Associated Charities which her niece-in-law, Henrietta Cooney, had mentioned to the Dabney House.

As it happened there came a letter from Hen Cooney by the same mail that brought mamma’s death-dealing one from Mrs. McVey.  For Hen, who had never dreamed of corresponding with Cally before, had started up this summer with a long and quite affectionate steamer-letter, and had since written regularly once a week, the newsiest and really the most interesting letters that the Heths got at all.  This letter had a private postscript, written on a separate sheet, which said: 

Cally, I don’t know how you’ll take it, but I think I ought to tell you frankly how matters stand.  Of course there was plenty of talk, especially at first, and some of it was pretty strong.  But whether you like it or not, most of the responsibility for what happened is being put on Aunt Isabel.  Do you remember Mrs. John S. Adkins who was at the Beach the day it happened?  She has told everybody it was Aunt Isabel