not
to wait dinner. He would not be home that night. She gave the message in
a calm voice, and told Kate not to send up dinner. She had a bad headache
and could not eat anything.

Kate had stood by waiting timidly. She had had a sense of things
happening. Now she retired with curiosity relieved. Kate was used to her
mistress's bad headaches. A headache needed no explanation. It explained
everything.

Anne picked up the telegram and read it over again. Every week, for
nearly three years, she had received these messages. They had always been
sent from the same post office in Scale, and the words had always been
the same: "Don't wait. May not be home to-night."

To-night the telegram struck her as a new thing. It stood for something
new. But all the other telegrams had meant the same thing. Not a new
thing. A thing that had been going on for three years; four, five, six
years, for all she knew. It was six years since their separation; and
that had been his wish.

She had always known it; and she had always put her knowledge away from
her, tried not to know more. Her friends had known it too. Canon Wharton,
and the Gardners, and Fanny. It all came back to her, the words, and the
looks that had told her more than any words, signs that she had often
wondered at and refused to understand. They had known all the depths of
it. It was only the other day that Fanny had offered her house to her as
a refuge from her own house in its shame. Fanny had supposed that it must
come to that.

God knew she had been loyal to him in the beginning. She had closed her
eyes. She had forbidden her senses to take evidence against him. She had
been loyal all through, loyal to the very end. She had lied for him. If,
indeed, she _had_ lied. In denying Lady Cayley's statements, she had
denied her right to make them, that was all.

Her mind, active now, went backwards and forwards over the chain of
evidence, testing each link in turn. All held. It was all true. She had
always known it.

Then she remembered that she and Peggy would be going away to-morrow.
That was well. It was the best thing she could do. Later on, when they
were home again, it would be time enough to make up her mind as to what
she could do. If there was anything to be done.

Until then she would not see him. They would be gone to-morrow before he
could come home. Unless he saw them off at the station. She would avoid
that by taking an earlier train. Then she would write to