appy again--I am sure we
are." He, for one, looked as if there was nothing to prevent a return
of happiness. He laughed and waved his hands. "A new sky---new
scenes--new work--you will be happy again, Iris. You shall go, dear.
Get me the things I want."

She put on her thick veil and started on her short journey. The
husband's sudden return to his former good spirits gave her a gleam of
hope. The change would be welcome indeed if it permitted him to go
about among other men, and to her if it gave her occupation. As to
forgetting--how could she forget the past, so long as they were reaping
the fruit of their wickedness in the shape of solid dividends? She
easily found what she wanted. The steamer of the Compagnie Generale
Transatlantique left Havre every eighth day. They would go by that
line. The more she considered the plan the more it recommended itself.
They would at any rate go out of prison. There would be a change in
their life. Miserable condition! To have no other choice of life but
that of banishment and concealment: no other prospect than that of
continual fraud renewed by every post that brought them money.

When she had got all the information that was wanted she had still an
hour or two before her. She thought she would spend the time wandering
about the streets of Brussels. The animation and life of the cheerful
city--where all the people except the market-women are young--pleased
her. It was long since she had seen any of the cheerfulness that
belongs to a busy street. She walked slowly along, up one street and
down another, looking into the shops. She made two or three little
purchases. She looked into a place filled with Tauchnitz Editions, and
bought two or three books. She was beginning to think that she was
tired and had better make her way back to the station, when suddenly
she remembered the post-office and her instructions to Fanny Mere.

"I wonder," she said, "if Fanny has written to me."

She asked the way to the post-office. There was time if she walked
quickly.

At the Poste Restante there was a letter for her--more than a letter, a
parcel, apparently a book.

She received it and hurried back to the station.

In the train she amused herself with looking through the leaves of her
new books. Fanny Mere's letter she would read after dinner.

At dinner they actually talked. Lord Harry was excited with the
prospect of going back to the world. He had enjoyed his hermitage, he
said, quite l