‘That wouldn’t have made the position better. I have not left off hoping, Celia, and when I feel low-spirited I set myself to work to forget my own troubles. There is so much to be looked after on an estate like this--the house, the grounds, the poor people,--I can always find something to do.’ ‘You are a paragon of industry. I never saw the garden as pretty as it is this year.’ ‘I like everything to look its best,’ said Laura, blushing at her own thoughts. The one solace of her life of late had been to preserve and beautify the good old house and its surroundings. The secret hope that John Treverton would come back some day, and that life would be fair and sweet for her again, was the hidden spring of all her actions. Every morning she said to herself, ‘He may come to-day;’ every night she consoled herself with the fancy that he might come to-morrow. ‘I may have to wait for years,’ she said in her graver moments, ‘but let him come when he will, he shall find that I have been a faithful steward.’ She had never left the Manor House since she came back from her lonely honeymoon. She had received various hospitable invitations from the county families, who were anxious to be civil to her now that she was firmly established among them as a landowner; but she refused all such invitations, excusing herself because of her husband’s enforced absence. When he returned to England she would be delighted to visit with him, and so on; whereby the county people were given to understand that there was nothing extraordinary or unwarrantable in Mr. Treverton’s non-appearance at the Manor House. ‘His wife seems to approve of his conduct, so one can only suppose that it’s all right,’ said people; notwithstanding which the majority clung affectionately to the supposition that it was all wrong. Despite Laura’s hopefulness, and that sweetness of temper and gaiety of mind which preserved the youthful beauty of her face, there were hours--one hour, perhaps, in every day--when her spirits drooped, and hope seemed to sicken. She had pored over John Treverton’s last letter until the paper upon which it was written had grown thin and worn with frequent handling; but at the best, dear as the letter was to her, she could not extract much hope from it. The tone of the writer was not utterly hopeless. Yet he spoke of a parting that might be for life; of a tie that might last for ever, a tie that bound him in honour, if not in fact, to some other woman. He had wronged her deeply by that broken marriage--wronged her by supposing that the possession of Jasper Treverton’s estate could in any wise compensate her for the false position in which that marriage had placed her; and yet she could not find it in her heart to be angry with him. She loved him too well. And this letter, whatever guilt it vaguely confessed, overflowed with love for her. She forgave him all things for the sake of that love.