Lawrence grew very restless during those days when he was confined to his room at the hotel. The lacerated wound induced some fever, but still he was doing as well as possible. After the first, Prudence did not stay with him. She could bravely attack a dog in his behalf, but it appeared that she could not stop in a sick-room. Lawrence urged her to go, and, after a due amount of reluctance, she went. Her husband had plenty of time to think; he could not always thrust remembrance from him. He seemed to himself to be a very poor kind of a being. Where were his hopes for a career of usefulness and dignity in the world? Were they all lost for a woman's smile? And his self-respect? Had he bartered the peace of years for the rapture of moments? And Prudence was getting tired of him. It was impossible any longer to doubt that fact; as impossible as it was to doubt that other fact that she had once had a passion for him which she was willing to indulge when she could not marry an English nobleman. She greatly preferred him, Lawrence. Here Lawrence uttered a very grim-sounding word. In spite of himself, Lawrence did a great amount of thinking in those days, when he did not mean to think at all, and when he could often hear, in court or veranda, his wife's gay laugh mingling with the plash of fountains and the murmur of music. But she said she was greatly bored, that it was hard to wait until Rodney could get out again. The second time she said this, Lawrence responded by saying that as soon as he was able they would go North. "What! before spring?" she asked, in surprise, and with a hint of indignation. "Yes, before spring. I've been idle long enough. You've forgotten that I'm a lawyer. I had just begun to have a little success. I'll put on harness again." Prudence glanced at him with an elevation of eyebrow; she was wise in her way, and she knew that now was one of the times when it would do no good for her to plead. Thinking over the matter afterwards, Prudence decided that it would, after all, be more interesting to go North. CHAPTER XV. "TOO MUCH FOR ANY WOMAN TO FORGIVE." Though summer comes very slowly to New England, it yet does come, and when it has fully arrived its sumptuous beauty makes amends for all delays.