l
over again afresh. On one occasion when Dorothy could not say she
believed he was, when she saw him, thinking about his wife, Juliet went
into hysterics. She was growing so unmanageable that if Dorothy had not
partially opened her mind to Polwarth, she must at last have been
compelled to give her up. The charge was wearing her out; her strength
was giving way, and her temper growing so irritable that she was ashamed
of herself--and all without any good to Juliet. Twice she hinted at
letting her husband know where she was, but Juliet, although, on both
occasions, she had a moment before been talking as if Dorothy alone
prevented her from returning to him, fell on her knees in wild distress,
and entreated her to bear with her. At the smallest approach of the idea
toward actuality, the recollection rushed scorching back--of how she had
implored him, how she had humbled herself soul and body before him, how
he had turned from her with loathing, would not put forth a hand to lift
her from destruction and to restore her to peace, had left her naked on
the floor, nor once returned "to ask the spotted princess how she
fares"--and she shrunk with agony from any real thought of again
supplicating his mercy.

Presently another difficulty began to show in the near distance: Mr.
Drake, having made up his mind as to the alterations he would have
effected, had begun to think there was no occasion to put off till the
spring, and talked of commencing work in the house at no distant day.
Dorothy therefore proposed to Juliet that, as it was impossible to
conceal her there much longer, she should go to some distant part of the
country, where she would contrive to follow her. But the thought of
moving further from her husband, whose nearness, though she dared not
seek him, seemed her only safety, was frightful to Juliet. The wasting
anxiety she caused Dorothy did not occur to her. Sorrow is not selfish,
but many persons are in sorrow entirely selfish. It makes them so
important in their own eyes, that they seem to have a claim upon all
that people can do for them.

To the extent therefore, of what she might herself have known without
Juliet's confession, Dorothy, driven to her wits' end, resolved to open
the matter to the gatekeeper; and accordingly, one evening on her way
home, called at the lodge, and told Polwarth where and in what condition
she had found Mrs. Faber, and what she had done with her; that she did
not think it the part