of her husband's separate life in the
town--masculine haunts and habits of which she knew nothing and would
always know nothing. And the large existence of the male made her
envious.

"Going to see him now?"

"Well, yes." George smiled roguishly.

"What shall you say to him?"

"What can I say to him? No business of mine, you know, except that we've
lost a decent servant. But I expect that's Sarah's fault. She's no use
whatever with servants, now, Sarah isn't."

"_I_ shall never speak to Mr. Boutwood again!" Hilda exclaimed almost
passionately.

"Oh, but--"

"His behaviour is simply scandalous. It's really wicked. A man like
him!"

George put his lips out deprecatingly. "You may depend she asked for
it," he said.

"What?"

"She asked for it," he repeated with convinced firmness, and looked at
her steadily.

A flush slowly spread over her face and neck, and she lowered her gaze.
In her breast pride and shame were again mingled.

"You keep your hair on, littl'un," said George soothingly, and kissed
her. Then he took his hat and stick, which were with a lot of other
things on the broad white counterpane, and went off stylishly.

"You don't understand," she threw at him with a delicious side-glance of
reproof as he opened the door. She reproached herself for the deceiving
coquetry of the glance.

"Don't I?" he returned airily.

He was quite sure that nothing escaped his intelligence. To Hilda,
shocked by the coarseness and the obtuseness which evidently
characterized his attitude, now as on other occasions, this
self-confidence was desolating; it was ominously sinister.

III

She was alone with her image in the mirror, and the image was precisely
the same that she had always seen; she could detect no change in it
whatever. She liked the sensation of being alone and at home in this
room which before she had only entered as an overseer and which she had
never expected to occupy. She savoured the intimacy of the room--the
necessaries on the washstand, the superb tortoiseshell brushes, bought
by George in Dublin, on the dressing-table, the open trunks, George's
clothes on a chair, and her own flimsy trifles on the bed. Through the
glass she saw, behind her image, the image of the closed door; and then
she turned round to look at the real door and to assure herself that it
was closed. Childish! And yet...! George had shut the door. She
remembered the noise of its shutting. And that noise, in her memory