uld perfectly well have given
the telegram to Higgins to take, who would be waiting by the saloon
door.

She returned in a few moments, and she saw that Tristram's face was very
stern. It did not strike her that he was jealous about the mystery of
the telegram; she thought he was annoyed at her for not coming on in
case they should be late, so she said hurriedly, "There is plenty of
time."

"Naturally," he answered stiffly as they walked along, "but it is quite
unnecessary for Lady Tancred to struggle through this rabble and take
telegrams herself. Higgins could have done it when we were settled in
the train."

And with unexpected meekness all she said was, "I am very sorry."

So the incident ended there--but not the uneasy impression it left.

Tristram did not even make a pretense of reading the papers when the
train moved on; he sat there staring in front of him, with his handsome
face shadowed by a moody frown. And any close observer who knew him
would have seen that there was a change in his whole expression, since
the same time the last week.

The impossible disappointment of everything! What kind of a nature could
his wife have, to be so absolutely mute and unresponsive as she had
been? He felt glad he had not given her the chance to snub him again.
These last days he had been able to keep to his determination, and at
all events did not feel himself humiliated. How long would it be before
he should cease to care for her? He hoped to God--soon, because the
strain of crushing his passionate desires was one which no man could
stand long.

The little, mutinous face, with its alluring, velvet, white skin, her
slightly full lips, all curved and red, and tempting, and anything but
cold in shape, and the extraordinary magnetic attraction of her whole
personality, made her a most dangerous thing; and then his thoughts
turned to the vision of her hair undone that he had had on that first
evening at Dover. He had said once to Francis Markrute, he remembered,
that these great passions were "storybook stuff." Good God! Well, in
those days he had not known.

He thought, as he returned from his honeymoon this day, that he could
not be more frightfully unhappy, but he was really only beginning the
anguish of the churning of his soul--if he had known.

And Zara sat in her armchair, and pretended to read; but when he glanced
at her he saw that it was a farce and that her expressive eyes were
again quite blank.

And fi