"No. We are talking of putting in on the coast of Normandy somewhere;
and probably may run down to Brittany. I shall be back, at any rate, for
the hunting. As for the partridges, the game has gone so much to the
devil here that they are not worth coming for."

"You'll be away four months?"

"I suppose I shall if I don't come back till October." Then he left her,
calculating that she would have considered the matter before he
returned, and have decided that no good could come to her from
complaint. She knew his purpose now, and would no doubt reconcile
herself to it quickly--perhaps with a few tears, which would not hurt
him if he did not see them.

But this blow was almost more than Lady Clavering could bear--was more
than she could bear in silence. Why she should have grudged her husband
his trip abroad, seeing that his presence in England could hardly have
been a solace to her, it is hard to understand. Had he remained in
England, he would rarely have been at Clavering Park; and when he was at
the Park he would rarely have given her the benefit of his society. When
they were together, he was usually scolding her, or else sitting in
gloomy silence, as though that phase of his life was almost
insupportable to him. He was so unusually disagreeable in his
intercourse with her, that his absence, one would think, must be
preferable to his presence. But women can bear anything better than
desertion. Cruelty is bad, but neglect is worse than cruelty, and
desertion worse even than neglect. To be treated as though she were not
in existence, or as though her existence were a nuisance simply to be
endured, and, as far as possible, to be forgotten, was more than even
Lady Clavering could bear without complaint. When her husband left her,
she sat meditating how she might turn against her oppressor. She was a
woman not apt for fighting--unlike her sister, who knew well how to use
the cudgels in her own behalf; she was timid, not gifted with a full
flow of words, prone to sink and become dependent; but she--even
she--with all these deficiencies-felt that she must make some stand
against the outrage to which he was now to be subjected.

"Hugh," she said, when she next saw him, "you can't really mean that you
are going to leave me from this time till the Winter?"

"I said nothing about the Winter."

"Well--till October?"

"I said that I was going, and I usually mean what I say."

"I cannot believe it, Hugh; I cannot bring myse