publish his own shame, but neither would he leave the
smallest doubt in her mind as to what he thought of her, or what he felt
toward her. All should be utterly changed between them. He would behave
to her with extreme, with marked politeness; he would pay her every
attention woman could claim, but her friend, her husband, he would be no
more. His thoughts of vengeance took many turns, some of them childish.
He would always call her _Mrs. Faber_. Never, except they had friends,
would he sit in the same room with her. To avoid scandal, he would dine
with her, if he could not help being at home, but when he rose from the
table, it would be to go to his study. If he happened at any time to be
in the room with her when she rose to retire, he would light her candle,
carry it up stairs for her, open the door, make her a polite bow, and
leave her. Never once would he cross the threshold of her bedroom. She
should have plenty of money; the purse of an adventuress was a greedy
one, but he would do his best to fill it, nor once reproach her with
extravagance--of which fault, let me remark, she had never yet shown a
sign. He would refuse her nothing she asked of him--except it were in
any way himself. As soon as his old aunt died, he would get her a
brougham, but never would he sit in it by her side. Such, he thought,
would be the vengeance of a gentleman. Thus he fumed and raved and
trifled, in an agony of selfish suffering--a proud, injured man; and all
the time the object of his vengeful indignation was lying insensible on
the spot where she had prayed to him, her loving heart motionless within
a bosom of ice.

In the morning he went to his dressing-room, had his bath, and went down
to breakfast, half-desiring his wife's appearance, that he might begin
his course of vindictive torture. He could not eat, and was just rising
to go out, when the door opened, and the parlor-maid, who served also as
Juliet's attendant, appeared.

"I can't find mis'ess nowhere, sir," she said. Faber understood at once
that she had left him, and a terror, neither vague nor ill-founded,
possessed itself of him. He sprung from his seat, and darted up the
stair to her room. Little more than a glance was necessary to assure him
that she had gone deliberately, intending it should be forever. The
diamond ring lay on her dressing-table, spending itself in flashing back
the single ray of the sun that seemed to have stolen between the
curtains to find it; he