A sudden end came to the honeymoon. One morning there came to Beauchamp a letter in his sister's handwriting. He opened it, glanced at its contents, then, happening to look up and seeing that Eugenia was looking at him with some anxiety--for a certain eagerness in his manner had roused in her a suspicion that the letter was of unusual interest--he said something indistinct about returning immediately and hurriedly left the room. Eugenia felt a little startled, a little curious, and a very little hurt that her husband's first impulse when anything of more than ordinary interest occurred to him should be to shun rather than seek her sympathy. It never entered her mind to guess the nature of the news contained in Mrs Eyrecourt's letter. Once or twice when they first left home she had asked Beauchamp if he had heard how "that poor boy his cousin" was, but Captain Chancellor had seemed to shrink from the subject; and out of regard to this feeling of his, she, influenced also by a suspicion that but for her he would have been beside the invalid, had refrained from further allusion to it, and in the excitement of the last few weeks she had almost forgotten ever having heard of Roger at all. So she finished her breakfast without any serious misgiving, enjoying, with a zest so keen as to be a little surprising to herself, a letter from Sydney full of home news, news of their daily doings and commonplace life, the life which but a few months before, Eugenia Laurence had despised as dull and dreary beyond endurance! Then she sat down to answer Sydney's letter at once, feeling as if she could do so more cheerfully and satisfactorily while the home feeling was fresh upon her. For sometimes lately--quite lately--it had cost her a little effort to write to Sydney; why, she had never tried to define. She had only written half a page when Beauchamp rejoined her. She looked up quickly, then went on with her letter, afraid of appearing to force his confidence. But even the glance, momentary as it had been, had shown her a new expression in her husband's face, a look of repressed excitement such as she had never seen there before. Her instinct had been right; something had happened. At all times acutely sensitive to any fluctuation in the human atmosphere surrounding her, a sort of thrill now seemed to vibrate through every nerve. Spite of herself the hand shook that held the pen, and a large blot fell on the paper before her. A little exclamation escaped her; she glanced up quickly and found that Captain Chancellor was looking at her fixedly; looking at her, but with an absent, preoccupied expression, as if hardly seeing what was before him. A feeling of increased apprehension came over her; it was a relief when at last he spoke.