She was alone in the carriage; she put her bag carefully down beside her on the seat, and shut the windows, for the drizzling rain was coming in aslant, and chilled her. Once or twice a sharp pang of pain darted through her shoulders, but she did not mind; she was dreaming among illusions, and found a passing spell of happiness that brought a smile to her lips and a wink of almost merry anticipation to her eye, as she saw the little dinner she had devised set out, and Alfred facing her at table. She imagined him saying, in the solemn manner in which he said everything, “I feel better, Anne,” when he had finished, and she knew that in those few words she would find a balm for all the insults and misery of the last few hours. She repented now that she was returning by the early train; it seemed like treachery to him. It had been almost noble of him to conceal from her the embarrassing debt he had at Liphook. “He has evidently been reticent,” she thought, “from a desire to save me pain. My dear one,—I have wronged him lately, but I will make it up to him this evening. I will tell him that there is no poverty or sorrow I should not think it a privilege to share with him.” She peered out of the window at the landscape dulling with the rain. “I hope he is not in the garden,” she thought. “He will catch cold, and his cough was so bad last week. I am glad I remembered to bring some lozenges for him.” The train sped on past Woking and the fir-woods beyond; they reminded her of the trees round the cottage at Witley. When it was dark to-night, she would look up at them before she bolted the door after Jane Mitchell. And then she and Alfred would sit over the fire and talk; he would feel so much better after his dinner, she was sure he would be kind to her. He had been worried lately with poverty, but just for a little while he should forget it. With the future she did not concern herself, for she had already devised a plan that would make it easy. She would go and see Mr. Boughton, and of course he would help them when he heard that Alfred was her husband. He would continue the allowance he had given them, and when Sir William Rammage made a new will he would take care that it was not an iniquitous one. It had never seriously occurred to her that William would leave her money, though, once or twice, the possibility had crossed her mind. But she had never been able to look forward at all for herself. “Now,” she thought, “I must give the future my consideration. I must think of it for my dear Alfred. Luxuries are necessary to him; he cannot divest himself of his longing for them. Perhaps when Mr. Boughton returns he will make William ashamed of his conduct to me to-day, and he will do something for us before he dies; it would be very detrimental to his pride that we should starve, and I did not mince words to-day.” The train passed Milford Station; in a few minutes she would be at Witley. “I hope Alfred won’t be angry with me