Georgie found Mr. Hammond pretty well, and tolerably cheerful. The feeble old man liked his gentle and considerate hostess. He had liked her when he was in health; and he liked her still better now that the languor of illness rendered him liable to being fatigued by ordinarily dull or extraordinarily brilliant people. Georgie was neither;--she was only a gentle, refined, humble-minded, pure-hearted lady; and the old man, though of course he did not admire her at all in comparison with his own brilliant and bewitching Laura, and had considered her (under Laura's instructions) rather vapid and commonplace the preceding season, was in a position just then to appreciate these tamely admirable qualities to their fullest extent. She remained with Mr. Hammond until the sound of the horses' hoofs upon the avenue warned her that the cavalcade was returning. She then went hastily down the great staircase, and reached the hall just in time to see Mrs. Hammond lifted from her saddle by Sir Charles with demonstrative gallantry, and to observe that he looked into her face as he placed her upon the ground with an expression which rendered words wholly superfluous. The unborn strength which had been created by Alsager's counsel was too weak to bear this sharp trial. Georgie shrunk as if she had been stung, and, abandoning her brave purpose of giving her guests a cheerful greeting at the door, she took refuge in her own room. On this day Sir Charles for the first time departed from the custom he had maintained since their marriage, of seeking Georgie on his return home after any absence. It was a significant omission; and as she took her place at the dinner-table, Lady Mitford felt that the few hours which had elapsed since Colonel Alsager had given her that counsel, which every hour became more difficult for her to follow, had made a disastrous difference in her position. She would make a great effort--she would do all that Laurence had advised, but how if Sir Charles estranged himself from her altogether?--and even to her inexperience there was something ominous in any marked departure from his accustomed habits,--what should she do then? He might either persist in a tacit estrangement, which would place her at a hopeless disadvantage, or he might quarrel with her, and end all by an open rupture. Georgie was beginning to understand the man she had married, without as yet ceasing to love him; and it is wonderful what rapid progress the dullest of women will make in such knowledge when they are once set on its right track.