ndour of the
summers, the boom that was beginning 'up west.' Cunningly, in fact,
she set the stage for an actor to come; but his 'cue' was not yet.

It was only from her, indeed, that he would hear of these things.
If Phoebe ventured on them his manner stiffened at once. Miss Anna's
strong impression was, still, that with his wife he was always on his
guard against demands he felt himself physically unable to meet. Yet
it seemed to her, as time went on, that he was more and more aware of
Phoebe, more sensitive to her presence, her voice.

She too watched Phoebe, and with a growing, involuntary respect.
This changed woman had endured 'hardness,' had at last followed her
conscience; and, rebuffed and unforgiven as she seemed to be, she was
clothed none the less in a new dignity, modest and sad, but real. She
might be hopeless of recovering her husband; but all the same, the
law which links that strange thing, spiritual peace, with certain
surrenders, had already begun to work, unknown even to herself.

As she moved about the cottage and garden, indeed, new contacts, new
relations, slowly established themselves, unseen and unexpressed,
between her and the man who scarcely noticed her in words, from
morning till night. 'I should offend you twenty times a day,' he had
said to her--'and perhaps it might be the same with me!' But they
did not offend each other!--that was the merciful new fact, asserting
itself through this silent, suspended time. She was still beautiful.
The mountain air restored her clear, pure colour; and what time had
robbed her of in bloom it had given her back in _character_--the
artist's supreme demand. Self-control, bitterly learnt--fresh
capacities, moral or practical--these expressed themselves in a
thousand trifles. Not only in her tall slenderness and fairness was
she presently a challenge to Fenwick's sharpening sense; she began,
in a wholly new degree, to interest his intelligence. Her own had
blossomed; and in spite of grief, she had brought back with her some
of the ways of a young and tiptoe world. Soon he was, in secret,
hungry for her history--the history he had so far refused to hear.
Who was this man who had made love to her?--how far had it gone?--he
tossed at nights thinking of it. There came a time when he would
gladly have exchanged Carrie's gossip for hers; and through her soft
silence, as she sat beside him, he would hear suddenly, in memory,
the echoes of her girlish voice, and ma