“Jane,” said Mrs. Trevanion, “he does not understand me; how should he? you did not understand me at first. It is not that he means anything. And how can I tell him?--not here, I am not able. After, when we are far away, when I am out of reach, when I have got a little--strength--” “Madam!” said Jane, “if it is true, if you have to do it, if we must go to-night, don’t stand and waste all the little strength you have got standing here.” He listened to this conversation with impatience, yet with a growing sense that something lay beneath which would confound his hopes. He was not sympathetic with her trouble. How could he have been so? Had not her ways been contrary to his all his life? But a vague dread crept over him. He had thought himself near the object of his hopes, and now disappointment seemed to overshadow him. He looked angrily, with vexation and gathering dismay, at the dark figures of the two women, one leaning against the other. What did she mean now? How was she going to baffle him this time--she who had been contrary to him all his life? CHAPTER XXXVII. It was a long walk through the wind and blasts of rain, and the country roads were very dark and wet--not a night for a woman to be out in, much less a lady used to drive everywhere in her carriage, as he had said, and less still for one whose strength had been wasted by long confinement in a sick-room, and whose very life was sapped by secret pain. But these things, which made it less possible for Mrs. Trevanion to bear the fatigues to which she was exposed, reacted on the other side, and made her unconscious of the lesser outside evils which were as nothing in comparison with the real misery from which no expedient could set her free. She went along mechanically, conscious of a fatigue and aching which were almost welcome--which lulled a little the other misery which lay somewhere awaiting her, waiting for the first moment of leisure, the time when she should be clear-headed enough to understand and feel it all to the fullest. When they came into the light at the nearest railway station the two women were alone. They got into an empty carriage and placed themselves each in a corner, and, like St. Paul, wished for day; but yet the night was welcome too, giving their proceedings an air of something strange and out of all the habits of their life, which partially, momentarily, confused the every-day aspect of things around, and made this episode in existence all unnatural and unreal. It was morning, the dark, grim morning of winter, without light or color, when Mrs. Trevanion suddenly spoke for the first time. She said, as if thinking aloud, “It was not to be expected. Why should he, when he knows so little of me?” as if reasoning with herself. “No, Madam,” said Jane. “If he had been like others, accustomed to these restraints--for no doubt it is a restraint--” “Oh, yes, Madam.” “And perhaps with time and use,” she said, sighing and faltering. “Yes, Madam,” said Jane.