f mortal
life?

And it may be imagined with what anxious eyes those letters, which made
all the difference, were read; how the gradually changing tone in them
was noted as it came in, slowly but also surely. Sometimes they got
to be very hurried, and then Mrs. Dennistoun saw as in a glass the
impatient husband waiting, wondering what she could constantly find
to say to her mother; sometimes they were long and detailed, and
that meant, as would appear perhaps by a phrase slurred over in the
postscript, that Phil had gone away somewhere. There was never a
complaint in them, never a word that could be twisted into a complaint:
but the anxious mother read between the lines innumerable things, not
half of them true. There is perhaps never a half true of what anxiety
may imagine: but then the half that is true!

John Tatham was very faithful to her during that winter. As soon as he
came back from Switzerland, at the end of the long vacation, he went
down to see her, feeling the difference in the house beyond anything he
had imagined, feeling as if he were stepping into some darkened outer
chamber of the grave: but with a cheerful face and eager but confident
interest in "the news from Elinor." "Of course she is enjoying herself
immensely," he said, and Mrs. Dennistoun was able to reply with a smile
that was a little wistful, that yes, Elinor was enjoying herself
immensely. "She seems very happy, and everything is new to her and
bright," she said. They were both very glad that Elinor was happy, and
they were very cheerful themselves. Mrs. Dennistoun truly cheered by his
visit and by the necessity for looking after everything that John might
be comfortable, and the pleasure of seeing his face opposite to her at
table. "You can't think what it is to see you there; sitting down to
dinner is the most horrible farce when one is alone." "Poor aunt!" John
Tatham said: and nobody would believe how many Saturdays and Sundays he
gave up to her during the long winter. Somehow he himself did not care
to go anywhere else. In Elinor's time he had gone about freely enough,
liking a little variety in his Saturday to Mondays, though always
happiest when he went to Windyhill: but now somehow the other houses
seemed to pall upon him. He liked best to go down to that melancholy
house which his presence made more or less bright, where there was an
endless talk of Elinor, where she was, what she was doing, and what was
to be her next move, and, a