Janetta left the room, feeling both sick and sorry, and wondering how much longer she could bear this kind of life. It was telling upon her nerves and on her strength in every possible way. And yet she could not abandon her post--unless, indeed, Wyvis himself relieved her. And from him for many weary days there came no word. But at last a telegram arrived--dated from Liverpool. "I shall be with you to-morrow. Your letter was delayed, and reached me only by accident," Wyvis said. And then his silence was explained. Janetta carried the news of his approaching arrival to wife and mother in turn. Mrs. Wyvis took it calmly. "I told you so," she said, with a triumphant little nod. But Mrs. Brand was terribly agitated, and even, as it seemed to Janetta, amazed. "I never thought that he would come," she said, in a loud whisper, with a troubled face and various nervous movements of her hands. "I never thought that he would come back to her. I must be quick. I must be quick, indeed." And when Janetta tried to soothe her, and said that she must now make haste to be well and strong when Wyvis was returning, she answered only in about the self-same words--"never thought it, my dear, indeed, I never did. But if he is coming back, so soon, I must be quick--I must be very quick." And Janetta could not persuade her to say why. CHAPTER XXXVII. NIGHT. It was the night before Wyvis' return. The whole household seemed somewhat disorganized by the prospect. There was an air of subdued excitement visible in the oldest and staidest of the servants, for in spite of Wyvis' many shortcomings and his equivocal position, he was universally liked by his inferiors, if not by those who esteemed themselves his superiors, in social station. Mrs. Brand had gone to bed early, and Janetta hoped that she was asleep; Mrs. Wyvis had kept Janetta at her bedside until after eleven o'clock, regaling her with an account of her early experience in Paris. When at last she seemed sleepy, Janetta said good-night and went to her own room. She was tired but wakeful. The prospect of Wyvis' return excited her; she felt that it would be impossible to sleep that night, and she resolved therefore to establish herself before the fire in her own room, with a book, and to see, by carefully abstracting her mind from actual fact, whether she could induce the shy goddess, sleep, to visit her.