Probably Coventry was happier just now than he had yet been during his lifetime. He had always known, he assured himself, that, once the first excitement of her new existence had subsided, Trixie would settle down; that it could only be a matter of time for her to realise the responsibilities of a married woman's life; which self-assurance was not exactly genuine. But when doubt has safely turned to confidence, many of us are apt to forget that doubt has ever troubled us at all. However, at last Trixie seemed to have entered upon a stage of domesticity, just as whole-heartedly as she had thrown herself at first into gaieties and social distractions. She became wildly enthusiastic over her housekeeping, and tried her own and her husband's digestions severely by her daring experiments in cookery. She started a farmyard, and was triumphant concerning eggs and poultry, while George was driven silently distracted by the piercing and persistent clack of guinea-fowls. She spent contented hours at her piano and over her home mail, which, until lately, she had rather neglected. And she did not complain of the increasing heat, nor of the compulsory imprisonment indoors during the long days. She had plenty of resources within herself, and her high spirits never flagged. Any idea of going to the hills apparently had not occurred to her, and Coventry, whose theory was that as long as she kept her health a wife's place was with her husband, prudently did not suggest it. Not that he would have actually distrusted her away from him, but his peace of mind must have suffered acutely, knowing that she was making friendships and joining in amusements that he could not supervise; for undoubtedly Trixie would enjoy herself without reflection wherever she might be, and then there was always the fear of people talking, which held a kind of nightmare niche in his imagination. It was just at this peaceful period that an invitation came for him to join the camp of a well-known sportsman on a tiger-shooting expedition, an opportunity that no man, however uxorious a husband--and especially a man like Coventry, with whom sport had always been a passion--could easily resist without regret. And yet he hesitated. He could not honestly feel that he did not want to go, and yet he could have wished that Markham had not remembered him, had not thought of giving him this tempting chance, or that the letter had miscarried on the way and never reached him.