it for more than the day? The evenings were bad enough--but a
desolate night! And he had never told her!'

'I suppose you have not found it?'

'No; I wish I could!'

'Never mind; it will turn up. You have tired yourself.'

'But, Arthur, are you not coming home to-night?'

'Didn't I tell you? If I can't get away by the seven o'clock train,
I thought of sleeping there. Ten o'clock, I declare! I shall miss the
train!'

She came to the head of the stairs with him, asking plaintively, 'When
DO you come home? To-morrow, at latest?'

Perhaps it was her querulous tone, perhaps a mere boyish dislike to
being tied down, or even it might be mere hurry, that made him answer
impatiently, 'I can't tell--as it may happen. D'ye think I want to run
away! Only take care of yourself.'

This was in his coaxing voice; but it was not a moment when she could
bear to be turned aside, like an importunate child, and she was going to
speak; but he saw the wrong fishing-rod carried out, called hastily to
James, ran down-stairs, and was gone, without even looking back at her.

The sound of the closing door conveyed a sense of utter desolation to
her over-wrought mind--the house was a solitary prison; she sank on the
sofa, sobbing, 'Oh, I am very, very miserable! Why did he take me from
home, if he could not love me! Oh, what will become of me? Oh, mamma!
mamma!'

CHAPTER 2

What is so shrill as silent tears?
--GEORGE HERBERT

Arthur came home late in the afternoon of the following day. The door
was opened to him by his brother, who abruptly said, 'She is dying. You
must not lose a moment if you would see her alive.'

Arthur turned pale, and gave an inarticulate exclamation of
horror-stricken inquiry--'Confined?'

'Half-an-hour ago. She was taken ill yesterday morning immediately after
you left her. She is insensible, but you may find her still living.'

Nothing but strong indignation could have made John Martindale thus
communicate such tidings. He had arrived that day at noon to find that
the creature he had left in the height of her bright loveliness was
in the extremity of suffering and peril--her husband gone no one knew
whither; and the servants, too angry not to speak plainly, reporting
that he had left her in hysterics. John tried not to believe the half,
but as time went on, bringing despair of the poor young mother's life,
and no tidings of Arthur; while he became more and more certa