le that her husband fairly stood aghast.
For the first time since their marriage he saw her temper suddenly in a
flame. She started up from the sofa and walked about the room as if
she had lost her senses, upbraiding him for making the weakest of
concessions to Mr. Rambert's insolent assumption that the rector was to
blame. If she could only have laid hands on that letter, she would have
consulted her husband's dignity and independence by putting it in the
fire! She hoped and prayed the number of the paper might not be found!
In fact, it was certain that the number, after all these years, could
not possibly be hunted up. The idea of his acknowledging himself to be
in the wrong in that way, when he knew himself to be in the right! It
was almost ridiculous--no, it was _quite_ ridiculous! And she threw
herself back on the sofa, and suddenly burst out laughing.

At the first word of remonstrance which fell from her husband's lips her
mood changed again in an instant. She sprang up once more, kissed him
passionately, with the tears streaming from her eyes, and implored him
to leave her alone to recover herself. He quitted the room so seriously
alarmed about her that he resolved to go to the doctor privately and
question him on the spot. There was an unspeakable dread in his mind
that the nervous attack from which she had been pronounced to be
suffering might be a mere phrase intended to prepare him for the future
disclosure of something infinitely and indescribably worse.

The doctor, on hearing Mr. Carling's report, exhibited no surprise
and held to his opinion. Her nervous system was out of order, and her
husband had been needlessly frightened by a hysterical paroxysm. If she
did not get better in a week, change of scene might then be tried. In
the meantime, there was not the least cause for alarm.

On the next day she was quieter, but she hardly spoke at all. At night
she slept well, and Mr. Carling's faith in the medical man revived
again.

The morning after was the morning which would bring the answer from the
publisher in London. The rector's study was on the ground floor, and
when he heard the postman's knock, being especially anxious that morning
about his correspondence, he went out into the hall to receive his
letters the moment they were put on the table.

It was not the footman who had answered the door, as usual, but Mrs.
Carling's maid. She had taken the letters from the postman, and she was
going away wit