own on the bed, she knelt on. She took no
heed of time, no heed of aught that was earthly. How long she knelt she
never knew, but she was roused by Anne's voice in a frightened sob--'My
lady, my lady--come away! Oh, Miss Amabel, you should not be here.'

She lifted her head, and Anne afterwards told Mary Ross, 'she should
never forget how my lady looked. It was not grief: it was as if she had
been a little way with her husband, and was just called back.'

She rose--looked at his face again--saw Arnaud was at hand--let Anne
lead her into the next room, and shut the door.

CHAPTER 36

The matron who alone has stood
When not a prop seemed left below,
The first lorn hour of widowhood,
Yet, cheered and cheering all the while,
With sad but unaffected, smile.
--CHRISTIAN YEAR

The four months' wife was a widow before she was twenty-one, and
there she sat in her loneliness, her maid weeping, seeking in vain for
something to say that might comfort her, and struck with fear at seeing
her thus composed. It might be said that she had not yet realized her
situation, but the truth was, perhaps, that she was in the midst of the
true realities. She felt that her Guy was perfectly happy--happy beyond
thought or comparison--and she was so accustomed to rejoice with him,
that her mind had not yet opened to understand that his joy left her
mourning and desolate.

Thus she remained motionless for some minutes, till she was startled by
a sound of weeping--those fearful overpowering sobs, so terrible in a
strong man forced to give way.

'Philip!' thought she; and withal Guy's words returned--'It will be
worse for him than for you. Take care of him.'

'I must go to him,' said she at once.

She took up a purple prayer-book that she had unconsciously brought
in her hand from Guy's bed, and walked down-stairs, without pausing to
think what she should say or do, or remembering how she would naturally
have shrunk from the sight of violent grief.

Philip had retired to his own room the night before, overwhelmed by
the first full view of the extent of the injuries he had inflicted, the
first perception that pride and malevolence had been the true source of
his prejudice and misconceptions, and for the first time conscious of
the long-fostered conceit that had been his bane from boyhood. All had
flashed on him with the discovery of the true purpose of the demand
which he thought