e of an expression of regret; but
peace in any shape and at any cost Chetwynd felt he must have.

But Bella had by no means surrendered her determination of going on
the stage again, and was already with Saidie's assistance on the
look-out for an engagement. It would be difficult to define her
feelings towards her husband at this juncture. That there was still a
veiled hostility John Chetwynd could not fail to see; but in his
newly formed resolution to be patient and forbearing, he simply
ignored it and diligently cultivated a kindly, gentle bearing,
interesting himself in her little domesticities and the general
routine of her everyday life. This amused Bella intensely, and
although she would not have acknowledged it, perhaps touched her a
little.

Why had he not done this before? And having been careless and
indifferent once, why was he not so still? For this is how it was
with Bella; she was learning to compare her husband with her lover,
and be very sure the former suffered by comparison.

"Les absents ont toujours tort" and Saidie found so much to say and
said it in such a contemptuous, scornful way to Howard Astley, about
her sister's husband, that perhaps there was some little excuse for
the young man's impression that Bella Chetwynd would be vastly better
off under his protection than amid her present surroundings.

"The man was a brute," Miss Blackall declared.

Poor John Chetwynd! Not only was he far removed from being a brute,
but he was also miles above the man whom Saidie delighted to honour,
and whose addresses and attentions she thrust upon Bella at every
turn.

At first, to do her justice, the young wife shrank back dismayed.
Beyond his handsome face, Howard Astley had but little to recommend
him, and after listening to his commonplaces and enduring the fulsome
compliments it pleased him to pay, she would hurry home with tingling
pulses and a shamed heart to Jack--Jack, who had once been all the
world to her.

Once! Oh, and such a little time ago! After all, how little she had
to complain of in the man who had made her his wife!

He was "uninteresting," wrapped up in his profession, "dull." That
was all, but it meant a very great deal to Bella. It meant
everything; and the sluggish conscience which just at first had a
word or two to say in his defence, gradually went to sleep again and
troubled its owner no longer.

Why should she not enjoy herself as other women of her age did?

Why, indee