d, that he had tried every way to reclaim her,
and she had freed him from every law, human or divine. He could get a
divorce anywhere, that he knew; and after all a divorce was but the
legal affirmation of that severance which had been made by nature, ay,
and by God. Even the pure law of Christianity permitted it for that one
cause. Therefore there was no wrong. And to spare publicity was merciful,
merciful to her as well as to himself.

Thus he reasoned, growing more certain on each repetition, and packed
his portmanteau. But yet he did not take Mrs. Warrender's invitation
in all its fulness. There was a little salve for any possible prick of
conscience in this. Instead of from Monday to Saturday, as she said, he
kept to the original proposal and went from Saturday to Monday. There
was something in that; it was a self-denial, a self-restraint--he felt
that it was something to the other side of the account.

The Eustace Thynnes were still at Highcombe when he arrived, and Mrs.
Warrender had a little foretaste of the gratification which she proposed
to herself in announcing to Minnie at some future period the name of her
brother-in-law, in perceiving how deeply Minnie was impressed by the
visitor, and the evident but very delicately indicated devotion with
which he regarded Chatty, a thing which took the young married lady
altogether by surprise and gave her much thought. As for Chatty herself,
it was with the sensation of one reluctantly awaked out of a dream, that
she suffered herself once more to glide into the brighter life which
seemed to come and go with Cavendish, an attendant atmosphere. The dream,
indeed, had not been happy, but there had been a dim and not unsweet
tranquillity in it--a calm which was congenial to Chatty's nature.
Besides that she was still young enough to feel a luxury in that soft
languor of disappointment and failure against which she had never
rebelled, which she had accepted as her lot. Was it possible that it was
not to be her lot after all? Was there something before her brighter,
more beautiful, after all? not an agitated happiness, more excitement
than bliss, like that of Theo, not the sort of copartnery of superior
natures laying down the law to all surroundings, like Minnie and her
Eustace: but something much more lovely, the true ideal, that which
poetry was full of--was it possible that to herself, Chatty, the simplest
and youngest (she was older than Theo it was true, but that did