According to the Pattern (Romance Classic). Grace Livingston Hill

There was not the slightest hope that he could come home and explain this away as a business transaction, or a plot between him and that other woman to draw her out into the world, or any of those pretty fallacies that might happen in books. It was all true, and she had known it instantly. It had been revealed to her as in a flash, the meaning of long months of neglect, supposed business trips, luncheons, and dinners at the club instead of the homecoming. She knew it. She ought to have seen it before. If she had not been so engrossed in her little world of the household she would have done so. Indeed, now that she knew it, she recognized also that she had been given warnings of it. Her husband had done his best to get her out. He had suggested and begged, but she had not been well during the first years of the two elder children, and the coming of the third had again filled her heart and mind. Her home was enough for her, always provided he was in it. It was not enough for him. She had tried to make it a happy one; but perhaps she had been fretful and exacting sometimes, and it may be she had been in fault to allow the children to be noisy when their father was at home.

      He had always been fond of society, and had been brought up to do exactly as he pleased. It was hard for him to be shut in as she was, but that was a woman’s lot. At least it was the lot of the true mother who did not trust her little ones to servants. Ah, was she excusing him? That must not be. He was her husband. She loved him deeply, tenderly, bitterly; but she would not excuse him. He was at fault, of course. He should not have been riding with a wealthy woman of fashion while his own wife came to the park on the trolley and took care of her baby as he passed by. He was not a man of wealth yet, though they had hoped he would one day be; but how did he get into this set? How came he to be sitting beside that lovely lady with the haughty air who had smiled so graciously down upon him? Her soul recoiled even now as she remembered that her husband should be looking up in that way to any woman—that is, any woman but herself—oh, no! Not even that! She wanted her husband to be a man above, far above herself She must respect him. She could not live if she could not do that. What should she do? Was there anything to do? She would die. Perhaps that was the way out of it—she would die. It would be an easy affair. No heart could bear many such mighty grips of horror as had come upon hers that afternoon. It would not take long. But the children—her three little children! Could she leave them to the world—to another woman, perhaps, who would not love them? No, not that. Not even to save them from the shame of a father who had learned to love another woman than his wife. She reasoned this out. It seemed to her that her brain had never seen things so clearly before in all her life. Her little children were the burden of her sorrow. That all this should come upon them! A father who had disgraced them—who did not love his home! For this was certainly what it would come to be, even though he maintained all outward proprieties. She told herself that it was probable this had not been going on long. She forced herself to think back to the exact date when her husband began to stay away to dinners and to be out late evenings. How could she have been so easily satisfied in her safe, happy belief that her peace was to last forever, and go off to sleep before his return, often and often?

      And then her conscience, arising from a refreshing sleep, began to take up its neglected work and accused her smartly. It was all her fault. She could see her mistakes as clearly now as if they had been roads leading off from the path she ought to have kept. She had allowed her husband to become alienated from herself. She could look back to the spot where she ought to have done something, just what she did not know. She did not even stop to question whether it had been possible in her state of health, and with their small income, which was eaten up so fast in those days by doctor’s bills and little shoes. But all that was past. It could not be lived over. She had been a failure—yes, she, Miriam Hammond Winthrop—who had thought when she married that she would be the most devoted of wives, she had let her husband drift away from her, and had helped on the destruction that was coming surely and swiftly to her little children. Was it too late? Was the past utterly irretrievable? Had he gone too far? Had he lost his love for her entirely? Was her power all gone? She used to be able to bring the lovelight into his eyes. Could she ever do it again?

      Suddenly she laid down the little white garment with the needle just as she was beginning to take the next stitch and went to the mirror over the mantel to look at herself.

      She turned on all the gas jets and studied her face critically. Yes, she looked older, and there were wrinkles coming here and there. It seemed to her they had come that afternoon. Her eyes looked tired too, but could she not by vigorous attention to herself make her face once more attractive to her husband? If so it was worth doing, if she might save him, even if she died in the attempt. She took both hands and smoothed her forehead, rubbed her cheeks to make them red, and forgot to notice that the tears had burned themselves up, leaving her eyes brighter than usual. She tossed her hair up a little like the handsome woman’s she had seen in the park. It really was more becoming. Why had she not taken the trouble to dress it in the present style? Then she went back to her chair again and took up the work. The buttonholes that she had expected would take several evenings to finish were vanishing before her excited fingers without her knowing it. It was a relief to her to do something; and she put all her energy into it so that her hands began to ache, but she was only conscious of the awful ache in her heart and sewed on.

      If there were some one to advise her! Could she do it?

      Could she make a stand against the devil and try to save her Eden? Or was it more than one poor shy woman, with all the odds of the gay world against her, could accomplish?

      She longed to have her husband come home that she might throw herself at his feet and beg and plead with him for her happiness, to save their home; she longed to accuse him madly, and fling scorching words at him, and watch his face as she told him how she and his baby had seen him that afternoon; and then she longed again to throw her arms about his neck and cry upon his breast as she used to do when they were first married, and any little thing happened that she did not like. How she used to cry over trifles then! How could she, when such a world of sorrow was coming to her so soon?

      She was wise enough to know that none of these longings of her heart must be carried into effect if she would win her husband. In his present attitude he would laugh at her fears! She seemed to understand that her anguish would only anger him because he would feel condemned. Her own soul knew that she could not take him back into her heart of hearts until she won him back and he came of his own accord confessing his wrong to her. But would that ever be? He was a good man at heart, she believed. He would not do wrong, not very wrong, not knowingly. Perhaps he had not learned to love any other woman, only to love society, and—to—cease to love her.

      If her dear, wise mother were there! But no! She could not tell her. She must never breathe this thing to any living soul if she would hope to do anything! His honor should be hers. She would protect him from even her own condemnation so long as she could. But what to do and how to do it!

      Out of the chaos of her mind there presently began to form a plan. Her breath came and went with quick gasps and her heart beat wildly as she looked the daring thing in the face and summoned her courage to meet it.

      Could she perhaps meet that woman, that outrageous woman, on her own ground and vanquish her? Could she with only the few poor little stones of her wits and the sling of her love face this woman Goliath of society and challenge her? What! expect that woman, with all her native grace and beauty, her fabulous wealth, and her years of training to give way before her? A crimson spot came out on either cheek, but she swallowed hard with her hot dry throat and set her lips in firm resolve. She could but fail. She would do it.

      But how? And with what? It would take money. She could not use her husband’s, at least not much of it, not to win him back. There was a little, a few hundreds, a small legacy her grandmother had left to her. How pitifully small it seemed now! She cast a glance at a fashion magazine that lay upon her table. She had bought it the day before because of a valuable article on how to make over dress skirts to suit the coming season’s style. How satisfied with the sweet monotony of her life had she been then! It came to her with another sharp thrust now! But that magazine said that gowns from five to seven hundred dollars were no longer remarkable things. How she had smiled but the evening before as she read it and curled her lip at the unfortunates whose lives were run into the grooves of folly that could require such extravagance. Now she wished fiercely that she might possess several that cost