CHAPTER X. HUSBAND AND WIFE. He had sent no word of his coming, for he did not know just when he should reach Holburton. His strength might fail him, and he be obliged to stop for the night on the road. But he kept up wonderfully, and arrived at Holburton on the same train which had taken him there from Ellicottville on that memorable day which he would gladly have stricken out. There was no one at the little station except the ticket agent, who, being new to the place, scarcely noticed him as he crossed the platform and passed down the street toward the brown house on the common. There had been a storm of wind and rain the previous day, and the hop vine, which in the summer grew over the door, was torn down and lay upon the ground. A part of the fence, too, was nearly down, and a shutter hung by one hinge and swayed to and fro in the autumn wind. Taken as a whole, the house presented rather a forlorn appearance, and he found himself wondering how he had ever thought it so attractive. And still he felt his blood stir quickly at the thought of meeting Josephine again, and he half looked to see her come flying out to meet him as she had sometimes done. But only the cat, who was chasing a grasshopper through the uncut grass, came to welcome him by purring and rubbing herself against his legs as he went up the walk. Agnes let him in,—the same sun-bonnet on her head he had seen so many times, her sleeves rolled up, and her wide apron smelling of the suds she had come from. At sight of him she uttered an exclamation of surprise, and for a moment her tired face lighted up with something like pleasure; then that expression faded and was succeeded by an anxious, startled look, as she glanced nervously down the road as if expecting some one to whom she would give warning. Mrs. Fleming was in Boston, seeing to some mortgage on the house, and Josey had gone to ride, she said, as she led the way into the little parlor, which, even to Everard’s not very critical eye, presented an appearance of neglect unusual in Mrs. Fleming’s household. Evidently it had not been cared for that day, for the chairs were moved from their places, two standing close together, just where their last occupants had left them. There were crumbs of cake on the carpet, and two empty wineglasses on the table, with a fly or two crawling lazily on the inside and sipping the few red drops left there. As Agnes opened the window and brushed up the crumbs, she said she was intending to right up the room before Josephine came home, then, bidding Everard make himself as comfortable as possible, she left him alone, and went back to her work in the kitchen.