anuary, when people had hardly
yet recovered the idleness of Christmas. He started one windy afternoon,
when everything was grey, and arrived at Hurrymere station in the dim
twilight, still ruddy with tints of sunset. He was in a very contradictory
frame of mind, so that though his heart jumped to see Mrs. Dennistoun
awaiting him on the platform, there mingled in his satisfaction in
seeing her and hearing what she had to tell so much sooner, a perverse
conviction of cold and discomfort in the long drive up in the pony
carriage which he felt sure was before him. He was mistaken, however, on
this point, for the first thing she said was, "I have secured the fly,
John. Old Pearson will take your luggage. I have so much to tell you."
There was an air of excitement in her face, but not that air of subdued
and silent depression which comes with solitude. She was evidently full
of the report she had to make; but yet the first thing she did when she
was ensconced in the fly with John beside her was to cover her face with
her hands, and subside into her corner in a silent passion of tears.

"For mercy's sake tell me what is the matter. What has happened? Is
Elinor ill?"

He had almost asked is Elinor dead?

She uncovered her face, which had suddenly lighted up with a strange
gleam of joy underneath the tears. "John, Elinor is here," she said.

"Here?"

"At home--safe. I have brought her back--and the child."

"Confound the child!" John said in his excitement. "Brought her back!
What do you mean?"

"Oh, John, it is a long story. I have a hundred things to tell you, and
to ask your advice upon; but the main thing is that she is here. I have
brought her away from him. She will go back no more."

"She has left her husband?" he said, with a momentary flicker of
exultation in his dismay. But the dismay, to do him justice, was the
strongest. He looked at his companion almost sternly. "Things," he said,
"must have been very serious to justify that."

"They were more than serious--they had become impossible," Mrs.
Dennistoun said.

And she told him her story, which was a long one. She had arrived to
find Elinor alone in the little solitary lodge in the midst of the
wilds, not without attention indeed or comfort, but alone, her husband
absent. She had been very ill, and he had been at the neighbouring
castle, where a great party was assembled, and where, the mother
discovered at last, there was--the woman who had made Elinor's