She spoke still with that strange calm which her companion had wondered at from the beginning of their conversation. Her manner in the carriage seemed to be a part of the excitement of the evening's performance, but now the cold calm of reaction had come on and she was very quiet. She had leaned back again in the big chair, and looked at Hannah gravely. Neither of them thought of sleep, and their faces expressed its nearness as little as if it were afternoon, instead of midnight. The last words uttered by Christine had presented a practical difficulty to her friend which her own experiences brought home to her forcibly, while they shut her off from a just sympathy with some of her other trials. "What do you mean?" she said. "Isn't your husband well off and able to support you comfortably?" "How do I know? How am I to find out?" "Ask him. Make him explain to you exactly what his circumstances are. I wonder you haven't done that long ago." "You will wonder at a good deal more if you go on. For my part, I have wondered and wondered until I have no power to wonder left. I did ask him--that and many other things--and the result is I am as blind and ignorant this moment as you are." She spoke almost coldly. One would have thought it was another and an almost indifferent person whose affairs she was discussing. "But how can you be ignorant?" said Hannah. "Does he refuse to answer your questions?" "No--he doesn't refuse to answer them, though it is evident he thinks them useless and annoying--but generally he tells me he doesn't know." "Doesn't know how much money he has, or whether he is rich or poor?" The other nodded in acquiescence. "Why, how on earth can that be so? Doesn't he always have money to pay for things as you go along?" "Yes--heretofore he has always had. I have needed nothing for myself. All the handsome clothes you see me wear belong to my poor, miserable trousseau." She smiled bitterly as she said it, but there were no tears in her eyes and her voice was utterly calm. "What makes you think, then, that he may not continue to have plenty?"