"What! You will leave your husband to hirelings?" she asked, in her coldest, most metallic tones.
"'Hirelings' are the best people to leave Cecil with at present. You must see that yourself," Sophy answered, unmoved, and quite as coldly.
Lady Wychcote's mouth thinned to a hair. The width of this hair-line indicated an ironic smile.
"You have heard the saying, I presume, that a wife should forsake all lesser ties in order to cleave to her husband?"
"I have," replied Sophy. "And that other saying, too: 'Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands as unto the Lord.' I haven't the least intention of submitting myself to Cecil as 'unto the Lord.' And I don't mean to sacrifice my son to him, either."
Lady Wychcote said nothing at once, only sat and looked at her daughter-in-law. As she saw the hardness to which Sophy's face was congealing under this look, she broke her silence by observing:
"I was trying to realise that you actually propose to leave the man, whom you promised to cherish in sickness and in health--to leave him in the clutch of a hideous illness--merely because your son, _his_ son, has had an attack of croup."
"Why do you call it an 'illness,' Lady Wychcote?"
Her mother-in-law reddened; but replied doggedly:
"Because it is an illness. He came near dying the other night."
"People who persistently take poison must come near dying sometimes," said Sophy.
"I pity my son!" she exclaimed. "I pity him from the depths of my soul!"
"But not for the same reason. I pity him because he has married a heartless woman!"
Sophy shook her head gently. She had not risen. She sat looking up at her irate mother-in-law out of tired grey eyes.
"You don't think that," she said. "You don't like me--and you are very angry with me because I won't play 'patient Griselda' any longer--but you don't think me heartless."
"Upon my word!" exclaimed her ladyship, with a sort of gasp. "Upon my word!" she repeated. Words failed her.
Now Sophy rose too. She looked earnestly into the angry, pinched face. She was sorry for the mother whose ambition had outweighed her love--and was now but a grey ash of disappointment on her burnt-out, irascible heart.
"Lady Wychcote," she said, "I must tell you, whether you believe me or not, I must tell you that even now, after I had seen Bobby safe and well in proper hands, I would come back to Cecil--if it would do him any real good. No--please let me finish. I shan't speak like this again. I would come back--horrible, hideous as it all is--I would stay near him. But I cannot help him. I am sure that it only does him harm to have me--us--always overlooking--forgiving--weakly, miserably forgiving. I do _not_ forgive any longer--I will never forgive again--unless he will submit himself to those who can cure him. I won't risk my life and Bobby's--for his selfishness--his brutal self-indulgence. I wanted you to understand why I go--just how I feel. It is only fair. I am going to Italy with Bobby. Nothing can change me--nothing that you, or any one else, can say. Nothing--nothing!"