When the Afghan war broke out, all his epistles to Mark or Helen were regularly forwarded to her, and she received the news of his having gained the Victoria Cross with a pride that she did not attempt to conceal; but her fears and anxieties far outweighed any pleasure the intelligence afforded her. It did not delight her to hear that he had gained the _sobriquet_ of “Fighting Fairfax”--far from it; and when Captain Vaughan’s letter arrived her agony was beyond description. How she bore the miserable week that intervened before the next mail was only known to herself. She endured in silence, opening her heart to no one--taking no one into her confidence; not shedding a single tear, but going about her usual duties with a white set face that fairly frightened her aunt. “If he is dead,” she would say to herself as she paced her room, “he has gone without forgiving me. As I stand here he may be already weeks in his lonely foreign grave, and I, without knowing it, am his _widow_. If this is the case, I believe it will kill me.” Never very robust at any time, she looked now so worn, so thin, so altered, even with the suspense of less than a week, that it seemed as if it would not take much to snap her hold on life. She heard from the Mayhews of her husband’s approaching return, and saw by his letters how very reluctant he was to come home. He little knew that his wife’s eyes would rest on the lines he was penning when he said: “I have no wish to return to England; I am ten times happier out here than I shall be at home; and excepting to see you and Helen, and my son and heir, I do not wish to set foot in my native land for years. All my interests and all I care about most are bound up in the fortunes of the Seventeenth Royal Hussars. I hope to get command of the regiment ere long, and if I do I would not change places with any king or emperor you could name.” Alice read the above with apparent composure and handed it back to Helen, to whom she was paying a short visit. Indignation and disappointment were depicted in her face, in spite of her heroic efforts to appear indifferent. She went and stood at the window, to hide the tears that would come into her eyes. “He does not mean it, Alice,” said Helen soothingly. “It is nothing to me whether he does or not,” replied Alice hotly, “but he does mean it; at any rate we will not talk about him.” Then continued, with womanly consistency: “I can read between the lines of that letter. _I_ am the cause of his reluctance to come home; he does not wish to be in the same country with me; he hates to remember that he is a married man; he is afraid that we shall meet; but he need not be. England is wide enough for both of us, and I have no wish to see a husband who has completely ignored me for nearly three years.” So saying, and rapidly collecting her hat, umbrella, and gloves (having just come in from the park), she swept indignantly out of the room. CHAPTER VI.