Mrs. Raynor made no further objection; and Edina set out. The visit of the banker seemed to have saddened rather than cheered her--as so unusual a little change in the monotony of their home life might have been expected to do. They all felt faint and weary with their depressing prospects. Were things to go on for life as they now were? It was a question they often asked themselves. And, for all they could see, the answer was--Yes. Even Edina at times lost heart, and indulged in a good cry in secret. Matters were not in a much better state at Frank Raynor's. It is true no poverty was there, no privation; but the old happiness that existed between him and his wife had disappeared. Daisy was much changed. The once warm-hearted girl had become cold and silent, and frightfully apathetic. Her husband never received a kindly look from her, or heard a loving tone. She did not complain. She did not reproach him. She did not find fault with any earthly thing. She just went through life in a listless kind of manner, as if all interest had left her for ever. Frank put it down to dissatisfaction at their changed circumstances; to the obscure manner in which they lived. Ever and anon he would try to breathe a word of hope that things would be different sometime: but his wife never responded to it. Steeped in her miserable jealousy, was Mrs. Frank Raynor. All through this past year had she been silently indulging it. It had become a chronic ailment; it coloured her mind by day and her dreams by night. The most provoking feature of it all was, that she could not obtain any tangible proof of her husband's delinquency, anything very special to make a stir about: and how intensely aggravating that is to a jealous woman, let many confess. That her husband did go to Mrs. Bell's frequently, was indisputable: but then, as a counterbalance to that, there was the fact that he went in his professional capacity. No end of pills and potions were entered in Mrs. Bell's name in the medicine-book, and Daisy was therefore unable to assert that the plea for his visits was a mere pretence. But she believed it was so. Once, chance had given her an opportunity of speaking of these visits. A serious accident happened in the street just opposite their door, through a vicious horse. Daisy watched it from the drawing-room window; saw the injured man brought into the surgery. She ran down in distress. Frank was not at home. The boy flew one way in search of him, Eve ran another: but Frank could not be found, and the poor man had to be carried insensible elsewhere. "I'm very sorry," said Frank, when he returned, speaking rather carelessly; "I was at Mrs. Bell's." "You appear to be pretty often there," retorted Daisy, an angry sound in her usually cold tones. "I go every two or three days," said he. And how much oftener, I wonder! thought Daisy: but she said nothing more.