in foreign parts, taking up with any man that comes her way; for
I don't trust her now--I reckon she's lost to shame."

She wrote Ellen to this effect, and, not surprisingly, received no
answer. She felt hard and desperate--the thought that she was perhaps
binding her sister to her misdoing gave her only occasional spasms of
remorse. Sometimes she would feel as if all her being and all her
history, Ansdore and her father's memory, disowned her sister, and that
she could never take her back into her life again, however
penitent--"She's mocked at our good ways--she's loose, she's low." At
other times her heart melted towards Ellen in weakness, and she knew
within herself that no matter what she did, she would always be her
little sister, her child, her darling, whom all her life she had
cherished and could never cast out.

She said nothing about these swaying feelings to Arthur--she had of late
grown far more secretive about herself--as for him, he took things as
they came. He found a wondrous quiet in this time, when he was allowed
to serve Joanna as in days of old. He did not think of marrying her--he
knew that even if it was true that the lawyers could set aside parson's
word, Joanna would not take him now, any more than she would have taken
him five or ten or fifteen years ago; she did not think about him in
that way. On the other hand she appreciated his company and his
services. He called at Ansdore two or three times a week, and ran her
errands for her. It was almost like old times, and in his heart he knew
and was ashamed to know that he hoped Ellen would never come back. If
she came back either to him or to Joanna, these days of quiet happiness
would end. Meantime, he would not think of it--he was Joanna's servant,
and when she could not be in two places at once it was his joy and
privilege to be in one of them. "I could live like this for ever,
surely," he said to himself, as he sat stirring his solitary cup of tea
at Donkey Street, knowing that he was to call at Ansdore the next
morning. That was the morning he met Joanna in the drive, hatless, and
holding a piece of paper in her hand.

"I've heard from Ellen--she's telegraphed from Venice--she's coming
home."

Sec.31

Now that she knew Ellen was coming, Joanna had nothing in her heart but
joy and angry love. Ellen was coming back, at last, after many
wanderings--and she saw now that these wanderings included the years of
her life with Alce--she was