orning of hesitations, Leonora decided in
the afternoon that she would go out for a walk and return in some
definite state of mind. She loosed Bran, and the dog, when he had
finished his elephantine gambades, followed her close at heel, with all
stateliness, to the wide marsh on the brow of the hill. Here she began
actively and seriously to cogitate.

John was sulking; and it was seldom that he sulked. He had not spoken to
her again, neither on the previous evening nor at breakfast; he had said
nothing whatever to any one, except to tell Bessie that he should not be
at home for dinner; on committee-meeting days, when he was engaged at
the Town Hall, John sometimes dined at the Tiger. His attitude produced
small effect on Leonora. She was far too completely absorbed in herself
to be perturbed by the offensive symptoms of her husband's wrath. She
had neglected even to call on Uncle Meshach; and as she strolled about
the marsh she thought vaguely and perfunctorily that she must see Uncle
Meshach soon and acquaint him with John's difficulties.

Pride as much as joy and alarm filled her heart. She was proud of her
perilous love; she would have liked proudly to confide it to some
friend, some mature and brilliant woman who knew the world and
understood things, and who would talk rationally; it seemed to her that
this secret idyll, at once tender and sincere and rather dashing, was
worthy of pride. She knew that many women, languishing in the greyness
of an impeccable and frigid domesticity, would be capable of envying
her; she remembered that, in reading the newspapers, she had sometimes
timidly envied the heroines of the matrimonial court who had bought
romance at the price of esteem and of peace. Then suddenly the whole
matter slipped into unreality, and she could not credit it. Was it
possible that she, a respectable matron, a known figure, the mother of
adult daughters, had fallen in love with a man not her husband, had had
a secret interview with her lover, and was anticipating, not a retreat,
but an advance? And she thought, as every honest woman has thought in
like case: 'This may happen to others; one hears of it, one reads about
it; but surely it cannot have happened to _me_!' And when she had
admitted that it had in fact happened to her, and had perceived with a
kind of shock that the heroines of the matrimonial court were real
persons, everyday creatures of flesh-and-blood, she thought, again like
the rest: 'Ah! B