the condition I have been in during
the last three months."

"Yes, my dear, I do. You have been deserted, and it has been very
bad."

But Mrs. Western did not approve of the word used, as it carried a
strong reproach against her husband. She was anxious now to take
upon herself the whole weight of the fault which had produced their
separation, and to hold him to have been altogether sinless. And
as yet she was not quite sure that he would again take her to his
home. All she knew was that he would be that day in Exeter, and that
then so much might depend on her own conduct. Of this she was quite
sure,--that were he to reject her she must die. In her present
condition, and with the memory present to her of the dreams she had
dreamed, she could not live alone at Exeter, divided from him, and
there give birth to her child. But he must surely intend to take her
into his arms when he should arrive. It could not be possible that he
should again reject her when he had once seen her.

Then she became fidgety about her personal appearance,--a female
frailty which had never much prevailed with her,--and was anxious
even about her ribbons and her dress. "He does think so much about a
woman being neat," she said to her mother.

"I never perceived it in him, my dear."

"Because you have not known him as I have done. He does not say much,
but no one's eye is so accurate and so severe." All this arose from a
certain passage which dwelt in her remembrance, when he had praised
the fit of her gown, and had told her with a kiss that no woman ever
dressed so well as she did.

"I think, my dear," continued Mrs. Holt, "that if you wear your black
silk just simply, it will do very well."

Simply! Yes; she must certainly be simple. But it is so hard to be
simple in such a way as to please a man's eye. And yet, even when the
time came near, she did not dare to remain long in her bedroom lest
her own maid should know the source of her anxiety. At one time she
had declared that she would go down to the station to meet him, but
that idea had been soon abandoned. The first kiss she would give him
should not be seen by strangers.

But if she were perplexed as to how she would bear herself on the
coming occasion he was much more so. It may be said of him, that
through his whole journey home from Dresden he was disturbed,
unhappy, and silent. And that when his sister left him in London,
and that he had nothing immediately before him but the