"We will _both_ try again," he said, kindly, "Not that you did _not_ please me, my dear child. Your only fault was--was--well, perhaps, as I have sometimes told you, you expected a little too much; your ideas were a little bit too romantic for every-day life. The best of husbands and wives knock against each other's fancies now and then, you know, and it can't be always like a honeymoon,"--Eugenia winced at this a little, a very little,--"but, all the same, I don't see why our chances of being happy together are not quite as good as other people's. You will gain experience, and I, I hope, will learn to understand you better. And I think that's about all we can say. I am very thankful to have you again safe and well, and the next time you make yourself miserable about anything, come and ask _me_; don't go to other people, who see nothing except through their own prejudices. Gertrude didn't mean to make mischief; all the same she did so, as I told her. But Roma has put all that right?" "Yes," said Eugenia, "I--_we_--can never thank her enough for what she has done." "She says," pursued Beauchamp, with unwonted humility, "I should have told you all about that old affair with her. I was very nearly doing so once, I remember, but--I don't know how it was--I was bothered at that time, and I liked to keep you distinct from it all. I was bitter about Roma for a good while, and I disliked the subject. But, Eugenia, no suffering I have ever had to bear in my life has equalled that of the last few days." They were silent for a minute or two. "I must say," Captain Chancellor went on, speaking more in his usual tone, "the Thurstons behaved very sensibly in not making any fuss. Nothing would have been so odious as any absurd story getting about." But, happening to observe the pained expression of Eugenia's face, he changed the subject, and went on to talk of some plans he had in his head of going abroad for a time, taking Eugenia to visit many places so far known to her but by name. "It would be the best way of making you strong again," he said. "We might even spend next winter out of England, if we liked." And, notwithstanding the unexpected encouragement she had met with in her new resolutions, it was a relief to Eugenia to be freed from the anticipation of an immediate recommencement of the life at Halswood, hitherto so lonely and uncongenial. She was touched, too, by the evident consideration for her happiness which prompted this new scheme, and Beauchamp, on his side, felt rewarded by her gratification for the amount of self-denial which the proposed plan entailed on him. So when Roma rejoined them she quickly saw that her hopes had not been groundless; already the expression of Eugenia's face had grown brighter and less despondent than she had seen it for long. "Was I not a true prophet?" she said, to Eugenia, when they were by themselves again. "Are not things more hopeful than you expected?"