t could not be expected that she should
sympathise with generalities for ever. She longed to hate, to
reprobate, and to shudder at the actual name of the wretch who had
robbed her friend of a husband's heart. And therefore she asked the
question, "There's nobody special at Alston, is there?"

Now Mrs. Furnival knew to a furlong the distance from Noningsby to
Orley Farm, and knew also that the station at Hamworth was only
twenty-five minutes from that at Alston. She gave no immediate
answer, but threw up her head and shook her nostrils, as though she
were preparing for war; and then Miss Martha Biggs knew that there
was somebody special at Alston. Between such old friends why should
not the name be mentioned?

On the following day the two ladies dined at six, and then waited tea
patiently till ten. Had the thirst of a desert been raging within
that drawing-room, and had tea been within immediate call, those
ladies would have died ere they would have asked for it before his
return. He had said he would be home to tea, and they would have
waited for him, had it been till four o'clock in the morning! Let the
female married victim ever make the most of such positive wrongs as
Providence may vouchsafe to her. Had Mrs. Furnival ordered tea on
this evening before her husband's return, she would have been a woman
blind to the advantages of her own position. At ten the wheels of Mr.
Furnival's cab were heard, and the faces of both the ladies prepared
themselves for the encounter.

"Well, Kitty, how are you?" said Mr. Furnival, entering the room with
his arms prepared for a premeditated embrace. "What, Miss Biggs with
you? I did not know. How do you do, Miss Biggs?" and Mr. Furnival
extended his hand to the lady. They both looked at him, and they
could tell from the brightness of his eye and from the colour of his
nose that he had been dining at his club, and that the bin with the
precious cork had been visited on his behalf.

"Yes, my dear, it's rather lonely being here in this big room all
by oneself so long; so I asked Martha Biggs to come over to me. I
suppose there's no harm in that."

"Oh, if I'm in the way," began Miss Biggs, "or if Mr. Furnival is
going to stay at home for long--"

"You are not in the way, and I am not going to stay at home for
long," said Mr. Furnival, speaking with a voice that was perhaps a
little thick,--only a very little thick. No wife on good terms with
her husband would have deigned to noti