red me. I had no wish, after my long hours
of reading and thinking, to lie down and sleep. It was strange, but it
was so. I felt as if I _had_ slept, and had now just awakened--a new
woman, with a new mind.

I could now at last understand Eustace's desertion of me. To a man of
his refinement it would have been a martyrdom to meet his wife after she
had read the things published of him to all the world in the Report. I
felt that as he would have felt it. At the same time I thought he might
have trusted Me to make amends to him for the martyrdom, and might
have come back. Perhaps it might yet end in his coming back. In the
meanwhile, and in that expectation, I pitied and forgave him with my
whole heart.

One little matter only dwelt on my mind disagreeably, in spite of
my philosophy. Did Eustace still secretly love Mrs. Beauly? or had I
extinguished that passion in him? To what order of beauty did this lady
belong? Were we by any chance, the least in the world like one another?

The window of my room looked to the east. I drew up the blind, and saw
the sun rising grandly in a clear sky. The temptation to go out and
breathe the fresh morning air was irresistible. I put on my hat and
shawl, and took the Report of the Trial under my arm. The bolts of the
back door were easily drawn. In another minute I was out in Benjamin's
pretty little garden.

Composed and strengthened by the inviting solitude and the delicious
air, I found courage enough to face the serious question that now
confronted me--the question of the future.

I had read the Trial. I had vowed to devote my life to the sacred object
of vindicating my husband's innocence. A solitary, defenseless woman, I
stood pledged to myself to carry that desperate resolution through to an
end. How was I to begin?

The bold way of beginning was surely the wise way in such a position as
mine. I had good reasons (founded, as I have already mentioned, on the
important part played by this witness at the Trial) for believing that
the fittest person to advise and assist me was--Miserrimus Dexter. He
might disappoint the expectations that I had fixed on him, or he might
refuse to help me, or (like my uncle Starkweather) he might think I had
taken leave of my senses. All these events were possible. Nevertheless,
I held to my resolution to try the experiment. If he were in the land of
the living, I decided that my first step at starting should take me to
the deformed man with the