robably not till the
afternoon or evening. If so, there could be no letter. But if not a
letter, a telegram; unless, indeed, John were determined not to
take her back; unless her return were in his eyes a mere trouble and
burden; unless they were to be finally and for ever separated. Then he
would take his time--and write.

But--_Carrie_! Phoebe resumed her wandering from room to room and
window to window, her mind deafened as it were by the rush of her own
thoughts--unable to rest for a moment. He must want to see Carrie! And
that seeing must and should carry with it at least one interview with
his wife, at least the permission to tell her story, face to face.

Was it only a week since, under a sudden impulse, she had written to
Miss Anna?--from the Surrey lodging, where for nearly two months she
had hidden herself after their landing in England. Each day since
then had been at once the longest and the shortest she had ever known.
Every emotion of which she was capable had been roused into fresh
life, crowding the hours; while at the same time each day had flown
on wings of flame, bringing the moment--so awful, yet so desired--when
she should see John's face again. After the slow years of
self-inflicted exile; after the wavering weeks and months of
repentance, doubt, and changing resolution, life had suddenly become
breathless--a hurrying rush down some Avernian descent, towards
crashing pain and tumult. For how could it end well? She was no silly
girl to suppose that such things can be made right again with a few
soft words and a kiss.

Idly her mind wandered through the past; through the years of dumb,
helpless bitterness, when she would have given the world to undo what
she had done, and could see no way, consistently with the beliefs
which still held her; and through the first hours of sharp reaction,
produced partly by events in her own history and partly by fresh and
unexpected information. She had thought of John as hard, prosperous,
and cruel; removed altogether out of her social ken, a rich and
fashionable gentleman who might have and be what he would. The London
letter of a Canadian weekly paper had given her the news of his
election to the Academy. Then, from the same source, she had learnt
of the quarrel, the scene with the Hanging Committee, the noisy
resignation, and all the controversy surrounding it. She read and
re-read every line of this scanty news, pondering and worrying over
it. How like John,