ld not be likely to accept a recent and notorious evildoer.

She tried to forget that in this she herself had been wounded as a woman
and a wife. It was the offence to heaven that she minded, rather than her
own mere human hurt. Still, he had asked her to share his house and the
sad burden of it (her thought touched gently on the sadness and the
burden); and it was the least he could do to keep it undefiled by such
presences. He ought to have known what was due to the woman he had
married. If he did not, she said to herself sorrowfully, he must learn.

She never doubted that he would learn completely when he was once
persuaded that she had meant what she had said; when he saw that he was
driving her out of the house by inviting Mr. Gorst into it. To her the
question was of supreme importance. Whatever happiness was now left to
them must stand or fall by the expulsion of the prodigal.

If she had examined herself, Anne would have found that she hardly knew
which she really wished for more: that Majendie would at once surrender
to her view and leave off inviting Gorst, or that he would invite him at
once, and thus give her an occasion for her protest. That Majendie was
peaceable and disinclined to fight she gathered from the fact that he had
not invited him at once.

At last, one morning, he looked up quietly from his breakfast, and
remarked that he had invited Gorst (he laid a slightly irritating stress
upon the name) to dinner on Friday.

The day was Tuesday.

"And is he coming?" said Anne.

"He is," said Majendie.

When Friday came, Anne remarked at breakfast that she was going to dine
with Mrs. Eliott.

"I thought you would," said Majendie.

She had hoped that he would think she wouldn't.

They dined at seven o'clock in Thurston Square, and at half-past seven in
Prior Street, so that she would be well out of the house before Gorst
came into it. It was raining heavily. But Anne looked upon the rain as
her ally. Walter would be ashamed to think he had driven her out in such
weather.

He insisted on accompanying her to the Eliotts' door.

"Not a nice evening for turning out," said he as he opened his umbrella
and held it over her.

"Not at all," said she significantly.

At ten o'clock he came to fetch her in a cab.

Now, the cab, the escort, and the sheltering umbrella somewhat diminished
the grievance of her enforced withdrawal from her home. And Majendie's
manner did still more to take the wind out