His opportunities for telling were so numerous; he and Herbert were away together at that moment. That was another of her burdens. What was the meaning of this sudden, ill-omened connection which had sprung up between them? Why, all at once, had her husband become the inseparable companion of the man who had been wont to stand behind her chair? He had resented, so hotly, the fellow's presumption in even venturing to write to him; yet now they might be bosom friends; he even expected her to receive him as an equal. What did it mean? Nothing kindles the imagination like a coward conscience. All sorts of hideous surmises had tormented her. A dozen explanations had occurred to her; every fresh one more unsavoury than the last. She could see that her husband had changed; in himself, as well as to her. He was not the same man; he was always brooding, irritable, depressed. Of late, not only had he not spoken to her a tender word, he had only addressed her when compelled, and then with scant civility. What did such conduct on his part portend? All kinds of doubts afflicted her; yet among them one was foremost. Was it not possible that Morgan had poisoned her husband's mind against her? He, perhaps, had not told him everything, she did not believe he had; but, with diabolical ingenuity, he might have hinted just enough to make Herbert afraid of hearing more. In that case her husband might be working Morgan's will under the delusion that, by so doing, he was protecting her; and all the while the man was wresting from her all that she had risked so much to gain--for Herbert's sake. As, on the floor in the bedroom there, she wrestled with wild beasts of her own creation, on a sudden she heard the front door open, and a familiar step come into the house. It was her husband. She sprang to her feet, not with joy, but with terror. Why had he come back? He had told her that he would not return that night; perhaps not on the morrow. Why had he returned--when he had said that he would not return--without notice, at that hour of the night? for it seemed to her that she had been in her bedroom hours. She heard him go into the sitting-room; finding it in darkness, no one there, he came towards where she was. As she heard him take the half-dozen steps which divided the two rooms, she stood by the bedstead, trembling from head to foot; it might have been her executioner, not her husband, who was coming. A wild, frenzied impulse came to her to turn the key in the lock, and so gain time; but before she could do it he had opened the door, and was standing in the room.