should sit silent.

And then after a while he went down to Hadley, and saw her.

"Caroline, my cousin," he said to her.

"George, George." And then she turned her face from him, and sobbed
violently. They were the first tears she had shed since the news had
reached her.

She did feel, in very deed, that the man's blood was on her head. But
for her, would he not be sitting among the proud ones of the land?
Had she permitted him to walk his own course by himself, would this
utter destruction have come upon him? Or, having sworn to cherish him
as his wife, had she softened her heart towards him, would this deed
have been done? No; fifty times a day she would ask herself the
question; and as often would she answer it by the same words. The
man's blood was upon her head.

For many a long day Bertram said nothing to her of her actual state
of existence. He spoke neither of her past life as a wife nor her
present life as a widow. The name of that man, whom living they had
both despised and hated, was never mentioned between them during all
these months.

And yet he was frequently with her. He was with her aunt, rather, and
thus she became used to have him sitting in the room beside her. When
in her presence, he would talk of their money-matters, of the old man
and his will, in which, luckily, the name of Sir Henry Harcourt was
not mentioned; and at last they brought themselves to better
subjects, higher hopes--hopes that might yet be high, and solace that
was trustworthy, in spite of all that was come and gone.

And she would talk to him of himself; of himself as divided from her
in all things, except in cousinhood. And, at her instigation, he
again put himself to work in the dusky purlieus of Chancery Lane. Mr.
Die had now retired, and drank his port and counted his per cents. in
the blessed quiet of his evening days; but a Gamaliel was not
wanting, and George sat himself down once more in the porch. We may
be sure that he did not sit altogether in vain.

And then Adela--Mrs. Wilkinson we should now call her--visited the
two ladies in their silent retirement at Hadley. What words were
uttered between her and Lady Harcourt were heard by no other human
ear; but they were not uttered without effect. She who had been so
stricken could dare again to walk to church, and bear the eyes of the
little world around her. She would again walk forth and feel the sun,
and know that the fields were green, and that the flowers were