I have risen, and am walking quickly up and down. I have shaken off my stolid apathy, or, rather, it has fallen off of itself. Can she have told him any ill tales of me? any thing to my disadvantage? Instantly the thought of Musgrave--the black and heavy thought that is never far from the portals of my mind--darts across me, and, at the same instant, like a flash of lightning, the recollection of my meeting her on the fatal evening, just as (with tear-stained, swollen face) I had parted from Frank--of the alert and lively interest in her eyes, as she bowed and smiled to me, flames with sudden illumination into my soul. Still I can hardly credit it. It would, no doubt, be pleasant to her to sow dissension between us, but would even _she_ dare to carry ill tales of a wife to a husband? And even supposing that she had, would he attach so much importance to my being seen with wet cheeks? I, who cry so easily--I, who wept myself nearly blind when Jacky caught his leg in the snare? If he thinks so much of that part of the tale, _what would he think of the rest_? As I make this reflection I shudder, and again congratulate myself on my silence. For beyond our parting, and my tears, it is _impossible_ that she can have told him aught. Men are not prone to publish their own discomfitures; even _I_ know that much. I exonerate Mr. Musgrave from all share in making it known--and have the mossed tree-trunks lips? or the loud brook an articulate tongue? Thank God! thank God! _no!_ Nature never blabs. With infinite composure, with a most calm smile she _listens_, but she never tells again. A little reassured by this thought, I resolve to remain in doubt no longer than I can help, but to ascertain, if necessary, by direct inquiry, whether my suspicions are correct. This determination is no sooner come to than it puts fresh life and energy into my limbs. I take off my hat and jacket, smooth my hair, and prepare with some alacrity for luncheon. It is evening, however, before I have an opportunity of putting my resolve in practice. At luncheon, there are the servants; all afternoon, Roger is closeted with his agent: before we set off this morning, he never mentioned the agent: he never figured at all in our day's plan--(I imagined that he was to be kept till to-morrow); and at dinner there are the servants again. Thank God, they are gone now! We are alone, Roger and I. We are sitting in my boudoir, as in my day-dreams, before his return, I had pictured us; but, alas! where is caressing proximity which figured in all my visions? where is the stool on which I was to sit at his feet, with head confidently leaned on his arm? As it happens, Vick is sitting on the stool, and we occupy two arm-chairs, at civil distance from each other, much as if we had been married sixty years, and had hated each other for fifty-nine of them. I am idly fiddle-faddling with a piece of work, and Roger--is it possible?--is stretching out his hand toward a book.