his day, perhaps this same hour, must decide one of two
things--whether she were a wretched wife, bound for life to a man
who married her solely for mercenary motives, or whether she were
a wife--perhaps in this even more wretched--who had so wronged and
insulted her husband that nothing ever could win his forgiveness or
restore his love. His love, which, as she now dimly began to see, and
shuddered in the seeing, was becoming to her the most precious thing in
existence.

Never, until she sat there, quite alone, and feeling what it was to be
left alone, after being so watched and cherished---never until now had
she understood what the world would be to her if doomed to question her
husband's honour or to outlive her husband's love.

"It must have been all a dream," she said, moving her cold fingers to
and fro over her forehead. "He never could have wronged me so, or I him.
He must surely explain, and I will ask his pardon for what I said in my
passion--Unless, indeed, my accusation were true."

But she could not think of that possibility now--it maddened her.

"I shall meet him soon. I wonder how he will meet me. That will decide
all.--Hark!"

She listened--with a vague expectation of footsteps at the door. But no
one came.

"I suppose he is in his room still--our room." And all the solemn union
of married life--the perpetual presence, the never parting night nor
day, which makes estrangement in that tie worse than in any other human
bond--rushed upon her with unutterable terror.

"If he has deceived and wronged me, how shall I endure the sight of him?
If I have outraged him, and he will not forgive me--oh, what will become
of me?"

She heard various bells ringing throughout the house, and knew that she
had no time to lose. She rose up feebly, with that aching numbed feeling
which strong agitation leaves in the whole frame, and tottered to the
mirror.

"I must look at myself, to see that there is nothing strange about me,
in case I meet any one in the passages.--Oh, what a face!"

It was sallow, blanched, with dark shadows round the eyes, and dark
lines drawn everywhere. That first storm of wild passion--that agony of
remorse following, had left indelible marks. She seemed ten years older
since she had last beheld herself, which was when she pulled out her
long curls in the morning. She pulled them out mechanically now, trying
to make of them a screen to hide the poor face that she had used to
fancy they ad