Her misery had been extreme;--very much more bitter than he had imagined. It was not only that his displeasure made her life for the time wearisome, and robbed the only society she had of all its charms. It was not only that her heart was wounded by his anger. Those evils might have been short-lived. But she had seen,--she could not fail to see,--that his conduct was unworthy of her and of her deep love. Though she struggled hard against the feeling, she could not but despise the meanness of his jealousy. She knew thoroughly well that there had been no grain of offence in that letter from Arthur Fletcher,--and she knew that no man, no true man, would have taken offence at it. She tried to quench her judgment, and to silence the verdict which her intellect gave against him, but her intellect was too strong even for her heart. She was beginning to learn that the god of her idolatry was but a little human creature, and that she should not have worshipped at so poor a shrine. But nevertheless the love should be continued, and, if possible, the worship, though the idol had been already found to have feet of clay. He was her husband, and she would be true to him. As morning after morning he left her, still with that harsh, unmanly frown upon his face, she would look up at him with entreating eyes, and when he returned would receive him with her fondest smile. At length he, too, smiled. He came to her after that interview with Mr. Wharton and told her, speaking with the soft yet incisive voice which she used to love so well, that they were to dine in the Square on the following day. "Let there be an end of all this," he said, taking her in his arms and kissing her. Of course she did not tell him that "all this" had sprung from his ill-humour and not from hers. "I own I have been angry," he continued. "I will say nothing more about it now; but that man did vex me." "I have been so sorry that you should have been vexed." "Well;--let it pass away. I don't think your father is looking very well." "He is not ill?" "Oh no. He feels the loss of your society. He is so much alone. You must be more with him." "Has he not seen Everett yet?" "No. Everett is not behaving altogether well." Emily was made unhappy by this and showed it. "He is the best fellow in the world. I may safely say there is no other man whom I regard so warmly as I do your brother. But he takes wrong ideas into his head, and nothing will knock them out. I wonder what your father has done about his will." "I have not an idea. Nothing you may be sure will make him unjust to Everett." "Ah!--You don't happen to know whether he ever made a will?" "Not at all. He would be sure to say nothing about it to me,--or to anybody." "That is a kind of secrecy which I think wrong. It leads to so much uncertainty. You wouldn't like to ask him?" "No;--certainly." "It is astonishing to me how afraid you are of your father. He hasn't any land, has he?" "Land!"