esting upon the bolt as these reflections passed
through his mind, Sergius glanced keenly at Leta, as though possessed
with some dim suspicion that she had meant her words to be overheard.
Then, feeling reassured by her composed attitude, he turned away,
muttered something to himself the import of which she could not catch,
dropped his hand from the undrawn bolt to his side, stood for a moment
in a kind of maze of confusion, and finally left the prison, and
staggered through the garden to the house.

CHAPTER XVII.

Stunned and confused by her sudden exclusion, and naturally believing
that it was the result of deliberate action upon her husband's part,
AEnone now felt all her sudden inspiration of courage deserting her, and
sank half fainting against the outside wall. For a moment it seemed to
her like a dream. She could realize suspicion, harsh language, and even
cruel treatment within a certain limit, for these were all within the
scope of her late experience; but it was hard to comprehend this
unlooked-for and apparently deliberate excess of degradation. But
gradually the mist cleared away from her bewildered mind, and she
recognized the reality of what had befallen her. Still, however, her
thoughts could not at once grapple with the overwhelming sense of the
indignity and suffering cast upon her. She could not doubt that she had
been expelled from her lord's house--cast out unprotected and friendless
in the midst of night, with undeserved reproaches. But, for all that, a
delusive hope clung to her. He could not mean that this should last. It
was but an impulse of sudden anger. He would repent of it in a moment,
and would call upon her to return to him. He would shed tears of bitter
shame, perhaps, and would beg that she would forgive him. And she would
be foolish enough to do so, she felt, at the very first pleading word
from him; though at the same time feeling that her own self-respect
should prompt her to show more lasting resentment. If thus easily forgot
the past, what security could she feel that, in some future transport of
rage, he might not repeat the act? But for all that, she felt that she
would weakly too soon forgive him.

Sliding her trembling hand down the damp wall, she found along its foot
a ledge of stone more or less projecting in different sections, in
accordance with the architectural requirements of the building. Seating
herself upon the widest portion of this ledge, she now waited to hear