th chamber. Marian gave a
great start, and understood what Eliza meant by having "the life put
across in her." She listened, painfully conscious of the beats of her
heart. The noise came again: a footstep, or a chair pushed back, or--she
was not certain what. Could Mrs. Myers be watching at the bedside? It
was not unlikely. Could Susanna be recovering--finding herself laid out
for dead, and making a struggle for life up there alone? That would be
inconvenient, undesirable: even Marian forgot just then to consider that
obvious view wrong and unfeeling; but, anyhow, she must go and see, and,
if necessary, help. She wished there were some one to keep her company;
but was ashamed to call Eliza; and she felt that she would be as well by
herself as with Mrs. Myers. There was nothing for it but to take a
candle and go alone. No repetition of the noise occurred to daunt her
afresh; and she reached the landing above almost reassured, and thinking
how odd it was that the idea of finding somebody--Susanna--there,
though it had come as a fear, was fading out as a disappointed hope.

Finding herself loth to open the door, she at last set her teeth and did
it swiftly, as if to surprise someone within. She did surprise some one:
her husband, sitting by his sister's body. He started violently on
seeing her, and rose; whilst she, mechanically shutting the door without
turning, leaned back against it with her hand behind her, and looked at
him open-mouthed.

"Marian," he said, in a quite unexpectedly apprehensive tone, putting up
his hand deprecatingly: "remember, here"--indicating the figure on the
bed--"is an end of hypocrisy! No unrealities now: I cannot bear them.
Let us have no trash of magnanimous injured husband, erring but
repentant wife. We are man and woman, nothing less and nothing more.
After our marriage you declined intercourse on those terms; and I
accepted your conventions to please you. Now I refuse all conventions:
you have broken them yourself. If you will not have the truth between
us, avoid me until I have subsided into the old groove again. There!" he
added, wincing, "dont blush. What have you to blush for? It was the only
honest thing you ever did."

"I dont understand."

"No," he said gently, but with a gesture of despair; "how could you? You
never did, and you never will."

"If you mean to accuse me of having deceived you," said Marian, greatly
relieved and encouraged by a sense of being now the injured part