When he did come back, the husband and wife saw very little of each other. It was more convenient that he should stay in Upper Brook Street while she remained at her mother-in-law's; and altogether he was hardly three days in London. He rushed up to Market Malford to deliver his promised speech to his constituents, and immediately afterwards, on the urgent advice of the doctors, he went off to Wildheim with his mother and the elderly cousin whose aid he had already invoked. Before he went, he formally thanked his wife--who hardly spoke to him unless she was obliged--for her attention to his mother, and then lingered a little, looking no less "cadaverous," certainly, than when he had gone away, and apparently desiring to say more. "I suppose I shall be away about a fortnight," he said at last, "if one is to settle her comfortably. You haven't told me yet what you would like to do. Couldn't you get Miss Tulloch to go down with you to Ferth, or would you go to your people for a fortnight?" He was longing to ask her what had come of that promised visit of Lady Maxwell's. But neither by letter nor by word of mouth had Letty as yet said a word of it. And he did not know how to open the subject. During the time that he was with his wife and mother, nothing was seen of Marcella in Warwick Square, and an interview that he was to have had with Maxwell, by way of supplement to his numerous letters, had to be postponed because of overcrowded days on both sides. So that he was still in the dark. Letty at first made no answer to his rather lame proposals for her benefit. But just as he was turning away with a look of added worry, she said: "I don't want to go home, thank you, and I still less want to go to Ferth." "But you can't stay in London. There isn't a soul in town; and it would be too dull for you." He gazed at her in perplexity, praying, however, that he might not provoke a scene, for the carriage that was to take him and his mother to the station was almost at the door. Letty rose slowly, and folded up some embroidery she had been playing with. Then she took a note from her work-basket, and laid it on the table. "You may read that if you like. That's where I'm going." And she quickly went out of the room. George read the note. His face flushed, and he hurriedly busied himself with some of his preparations for departure. When his wife came into the room again he went up to her. "You could have done nothing so likely to save us both," he said huskily, and then could think of nothing more to say. He drew her to him as though to kiss her, but a blind movement of the old rage with him or circumstance leapt in her, and she pulled herself away. The thought of that particular moment had done more perhaps than anything else to thin and whiten her since she had been at Maxwell Court.