not understand it.
Perhaps it was only because he thus fell in a moment from being the
chief object of interest to the position of nobody at all.

CHAPTER VI.

A SHADOW OF COMING EVENTS.

Lucy's mind had sustained a certain shock when her husband appeared.
During her short married life there had not been a cloud, or a shadow of
a cloud, between them. But then there had been no question between them,
nothing to cause any question, no difference of opinion. Sir Tom had
taken all her business naturally into his hands. Whatever she wished she
had got--nay, before she expressed a wish it had been satisfied. He had
talked to her about everything, and she had listened with docile
attention, but without concealing the fact that she neither understood
nor wished to understand; and he had not only never chided her, but had
accepted her indifference with a smile of pleasure as the most natural
thing in the world. He had encouraged her in all her liberal charities,
shaking his head and declaring with a radiant face that she would ruin
herself, and that not even her fortune would stand it. But the one
matter which had given Lucy so much trouble before her marriage, and
which Jock had now brought back to her mind, was one that had never been
mentioned between them. He had known all about it, and her eccentric
proceedings and conflict with her guardians, backing her up, indeed,
with much laughter, and showing every symptom of amiable amusement; but
he had never given any opinion on the subject, nor made the slightest
allusion since to this grand condition of her father's will. In the
sunny years that were past Lucy had taken no notice of this omission.
She had not thought much on the subject herself. She had withdrawn from
it tacitly, as one is apt to do from a matter which has been productive
of pain and disappointment, and had been content to ignore that portion
of her responsibilities. Even when Jock forcibly revived the subject it
continued without any practical importance, and its existence was a
question between themselves to afford material for endless conversation
which had been pleasant and harmless. But when Sir Tom's hand was laid
on her shoulder, and his cheerful voice sounded in her ear, a sudden
shock was given to Lucy's being. It flashed upon her in a moment that
this question which she had been discussing with Jock had never been
mentioned between her and her husband, and with a sudden instinctive
perception