What had happened?
She went slowly back to her breakfast, but there was a little ball in her throat--she could not swallow--the grief and fear in her heart was surging upward and choking her.
All that her mother-in-law had said came back to her memory.

Had John taken that one step away?
Would he never take it back to her?
She was overwhelmed with a climbing sorrow that would not down.

Yet she asked with assumed indifference, "Was the Master well this morning ?" "It's likely, ma'am.

He wasn't complaining.

That isn't Master's way." Then she thought of her own complaining, and was silent.
After breakfast she went through the house and found every room impossible.