I am constrained to say that this self-abnegation was more fastidious than moral.

She had no more idea of the ethics of bankruptcy than any other charming woman; she simply did not like to take with her any contagious memory of the chapter of the life just closing.

She glanced around the home she was leaving without a lingering regret; there was no sentiment of tradition or custom that might be destroyed; her roots lay too near the surface to suffer dislocation; the happiness of her childless union had depended upon no domestic center, nor was its flame sacred to any local hearthstone.

It was without a sigh that, when night had fully fallen, she slipped unnoticed down the staircase.

At the door of the drawing-room she paused, and then entered with the first guilty feeling of shame she had known that evening.