she recalled them.

A month later, as she was sitting with Rachel one morning, there was a
knock at the door. Hetty was sitting in such a position that she could
not be seen from the door, but could see, in the looking-glass at the
foot of Rachel's bed, any person entering the room. As the door opened,
she looked up, and, to her unspeakable surprise, saw her husband coming
in; saw, in the same swift second's glance, the look of gladness and
welcome on his face, and heard him say, in tones of great tenderness:

"How are you to-day, precious child?" In the next instant, he had seen
his wife, and was, in his turn, so much astonished, that the look
of glad welcome which he had bent upon Rachel, was instantaneously
succeeded by one of blank surprise, bent upon Hetty; surprise, and
nothing else, but so great surprise that it looked almost like dismay
and confusion. "Why, Hetty!" he said, "I did not expect to see you
here."

"Nor I you," said Hetty, lightly; but the lightness of tone had a
certain something of constraint in it. This incident was one of those
inexplicably perverse acts of Fate which make one almost believe
sometimes in the depravity of spirits, if not in that of men. When Dr.
Eben had left home that morning, Hetty had said to him:

"Are you going to Springton, to-day?"

"No, not to-day," was the reply.

"I am very sorry," answered Hetty. "I wanted to send some jelly to
Rachel."

"Can't go to-day, possibly," the doctor had said. "I have to go the
other way."

But later in the morning he had met a messenger from Springton, riding
post-haste, with an imperative call which could not be deferred. And, as
he was in the village, he very naturally stopped to see Rachel. All of
this he explained with some confusion; feeling, for the first time in
his long married life, that it was awkward for a man to have to account
for his presence in any particular spot at any particular time. Hetty
betrayed no annoyance or incredulity: she felt none. She was too
sensible and reasonable a woman to have felt either, even if it had been
simply a change of purpose on the doctor's own part which had brought
him to Springton. The thing which had lent the shade of constraint to
Hetty's voice, and which lay like an icy mountain on Hetty's heart, was
the look which she had seen on his face, the tone which she had heard in
his voice, as he greeted Rachel. In that instant was planted the second
germ of unhappiness in Hetty's bosom. O