I still hoped that I might have gone to him at once on his return, and it was only when Alice, with a sleepy face, came calling me to baby, that I yielded at last, and went to bed, but not to sleep. Through all the dreary midnight hours after that I lay still and listened, hearing every sound, and supposing a hundred times over that I heard him return. Now and then I started up after a few moments' sleep, and went to the door to look out and listen--but there was still the dull light burning in the hall, the silence in the house, the drowsy stir of the man who waited for his master below--then my restlessness made my baby restless also, and I had to occupy myself with him, and subdue my anxiety for his sake. It was a dreary night; but I had nothing for it but to submit--lying still, sleeping in snatches, dreaming, thinking--thoughts that ran into dreams, and longing, as only watchers long, for the morning light. THE NINTH DAY. I was astir by dawn; but before even Alice came to me I was aware that my husband had not returned. The sleepy light in the hall still burned through the early morning darkness, and the watcher still stirred the fire, which had not gone out all night. When I made sure of this I hastened down to relieve the man from his uncomfortable vigil, and on my way met Mrs. Templeton, newly roused, who began immediately to assure me that "something very particular must have detained master--it was a thing he had never done before all his life,--but she hoped I would not be uneasy, for he'd be sure not to stay from home an hour longer than he could help." I do not know how it was, but this speech of the housekeeper's roused me into unreasonable anger. I was offended that any one should suppose my husband's conduct wanted defence to me; or worse still, that any one should presume to know him better than I did. I answered briefly, that I was aware Mr. Southcote had business to detain him, and hastened to my room to complete my dress. Almost unconsciously to myself, I put on a dark, warm travelling dress; the morning was brisk, frosty, and cheerful, and for the moment I was roused with the stimulus of having something to do. Somehow, even his absence and the long watch of the night did not dismay me--all at once it occurred to me, not how miserable, but how _foolish_ our discords were; the ordinary view--the common sense of the matter flashed upon me with a sudden light. I blushed for myself, yet I was roused; half-a-dozen frank words on either side, I suddenly thought, would set us right at once. I moved about my room with a quickened step, a sentiment of freedom; Saville's papers, my own fears, all the dismay and anxiety of the night, united, I cannot tell how, to give an impulse of hearty and courageous resistance to my mind. There was something to do; I forgot my own guilt in the matter, and all the deeper feelings which were concerned. I thought of it all with impatience, as I have sometimes thought of the