When Wealth Changes Everything — The Blue Castle

Valancy hurries home through Lover's Lane, hiding from every face after Trent's revelation. She feels death cheated her of the covenant she made and that she trapped Barney into a marriage hard and costly to dissolve in Ontario, especially since she still believes he is poor. A passing car of singers croons about wanting to be single again, and the joke cuts her like a whip. At the pines she finds a chauffeured purple car and a stout, spectacled man asking for Mr. Redfern's house. Valancy dimly recognizes Redfern from his patent-medicine labels and learns Barney is Bernard Snaith Redfern, his wealthy father's son.

She admits she is Barney's wife, rows the jovial millionaire to the silent Blue Castle, and listens as he describes Barney's vanished engagement to Ethel Traverse, his untouched bank account, and the fifteen-thousand-dollar pearl necklace Valancy wears. Thunder rolls over Mistawis while she learns Barney bought the pearls at Aynsley's in Port Lawrence. When Redfern leaves before rain, Valancy stands by cold ashes and realizes Barney can afford a divorce. Shock has left her numb enough to act.

The chapter ends with practical numbness: she can afford to leave Barney, yet that fact brings no comfort at all. Shock has left her numb enough to act before Barney returns and reads the letter she is about to write.