k with awe. Her own maid had tried to say a word once and again,
but had been silenced by the manner of her mistress. Cecilia, though
she felt the weight of the silence, could not bring herself to tell
the girl that her husband had left her for ever. The servants no
doubt knew it all, but she could not bring herself to tell them that
it was so. He had told her that her cheques on his bankers would be
paid, but she had declared that on no account should such cheque
be drawn by her. If he had made up his mind to desert her, and had
already left her without intending further communication, she must
provide for herself. She must go back to her mother, where the eyes
of all Exeter would see her. But she must in the first instance write
to her mother; and how could she explain to her mother all that had
happened? Would even her own mother believe her when she said that
she was already deserted by her husband for ever and ever because she
had not told him the story respecting Sir Francis Geraldine?

On the third morning she resolved that she would write to her
husband. It was not fit, so she told herself, that she should leave
his house without some further word of instruction from him. But how
to address him she was ignorant. He was gone, but she did not know
whither. The servants, no doubt, knew where, but she could not bring
herself to ask them. On the third day she wrote as follows. The
reader will remember that that short scrawl which she addressed to
him from her bedroom had not been sent.

DEAR GEORGE,--This is the first letter I have written to
you as your wife, and it will be very sad. I do not think
that you can have remembered that yours would be the first
which I had ever received from my husband.

Your order has crushed me altogether. It shall,
nevertheless, be obeyed as far as I am able to obey it.
You say something as to your means, and something also as
to your house. In that you cannot be obeyed. It is not
possible that I should take your money or live in your
house unless I am allowed to do so as your wife. The law,
I think, says that I may do so. But the law, of course,
cannot compel a man to be a loving, tender husband, or
even to accept the tenderness of a loving wife. I know
what you owe me, but I know also that I cannot exact it
unless you can give it with all your heart. Your money and
your house I will not have unless I can have them together
wi