sound of a horn echoing along the fell. Phoebe flew down to
the porch; then, remembering she might be seen, perhaps recognised, by
the postman, she stepped back into the parlour, listening, but out of
sight.

The servant, who had run down to fetch the letters, seemed to be
having something of an argument with the postman. In a few minutes she
reappeared, breathless.

'There's no letters, mum,' she said, seeing Phoebe at the parlour
window--'and I doan't think this has owt to do here.' She held up a
telegram, doubtfully--yet with an evident curiosity and excitement
in her look. It was addressed to 'Mrs. John Fenwick.' The postman had
clearly made some remark upon it.

Phoebe took it.

'It's all right. Tell him to leave it.'

The girl, noticing her agitation and her shaking fingers, ran down the
hill again to give the message. Phoebe carried the telegram upstairs
to her room, and locked the door.

For some moments she dared not open it. If it said that he refused to
come?--that he would never see her again? Phoebe felt that she should
die of grief--that life must stop.

At last she tore it open:

Sending messenger to-day. Hope to follow immediately. Welcome.

She gasped over the words, feeling them in the first instance as a
blow--a repulse. She had feared--but also she had hoped--she scarcely
knew for what--yet at least for something more, something different
from this.

He was not coming, then, at once! A messenger! What messenger could a
man send to his wife in such a case? Who knew them both well enough
to dare to come between them? Old fiercenesses woke up in her. Had
the word been merely cold and unforgiving it would have crushed her
indeed; but there was that in her which would have scarcely dared
complain. An eye for an eye--no conscience-stricken creature but
admits the wild justice of that.

But a 'messenger'!--when she that was lost is found, when a man's wife
comes back to him from the dead! Phoebe sat voiceless, the telegram on
her lap, a kind of scorn trembling on her lip.

Then her eye caught the word 'welcome,' and it struck home. She began
to sob, her angry pride melting. And suddenly the door of her room
opened, and there on the threshold stood Carrie--Carrie, who had been
crying, too--with wide, startled eyes and flushed cheeks. She looked
at her mother, then flew to her, while Phoebe instinctively covered
the telegram with her hand.

'Oh, mother! mother!--how could you? And I _laughe