ilt, I will
mourn and not reproach. But she needed time to gather up her strength;
she needed to sob out her farewell to all the gladness and pride of her
life. When she had resolved to go down, she prepared herself by some
little acts which might seem mere folly to a hard onlooker; they were
her way of expressing to all spectators visible or invisible that she
had begun a new life in which she embraced humiliation. She took off
all her ornaments and put on a plain black gown, and instead of wearing
her much-adorned cap and large bows of hair, she brushed her hair down
and put on a plain bonnet-cap, which made her look suddenly like an
early Methodist.

Bulstrode, who knew that his wife had been out and had come in saying
that she was not well, had spent the time in an agitation equal to
hers. He had looked forward to her learning the truth from others, and
had acquiesced in that probability, as something easier to him than any
confession. But now that he imagined the moment of her knowledge come,
he awaited the result in anguish. His daughters had been obliged to
consent to leave him, and though he had allowed some food to be brought
to him, he had not touched it. He felt himself perishing slowly in
unpitied misery. Perhaps he should never see his wife's face with
affection in it again. And if he turned to God there seemed to be no
answer but the pressure of retribution.

It was eight o'clock in the evening before the door opened and his wife
entered. He dared not look up at her. He sat with his eyes bent down,
and as she went towards him she thought he looked smaller--he seemed
so withered and shrunken. A movement of new compassion and old
tenderness went through her like a great wave, and putting one hand on
his which rested on the arm of the chair, and the other on his
shoulder, she said, solemnly but kindly--

"Look up, Nicholas."

He raised his eyes with a little start and looked at her half amazed
for a moment: her pale face, her changed, mourning dress, the trembling
about her mouth, all said, "I know;" and her hands and eyes rested
gently on him. He burst out crying and they cried together, she
sitting at his side. They could not yet speak to each other of the
shame which she was bearing with him, or of the acts which had brought
it down on them. His confession was silent, and her promise of
faithfulness was silent. Open-minded as she was, she nevertheless
shrank from the words which would