Did Poindexter know it, or had he only entrapped her into the admission?
Why had she not been clever enough to make him think that she knew it already?
For the moment she hated Poindexter for sharing that secret.

Yet this was again followed by a new impatience of her husband's want of insight into her ability to help him.

Of course the poor fellow could not bear to worry her, could not bear to face such men as Calhoun, or even Poindexter (she added exultingly to herself), but he might have sent her a line as he fled, only to prepare her to meet and combat the shame alone.

It did not occur to her unsophisticated singleness of nature that she was accepting as an error of feeling what the world would call cowardly selfishness.
At midnight the storm lulled and a few stars trembled through the rent clouds.

Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, and her country instincts, a little overlaid by the urban experiences of the last few years, came again to the surface.