"Why not?" asked Georgina, turning
her large eyes slowly on him.

"Oh, you have not, of course, observed
so trifling a matter; but the fact is, I am
very unwell."

"No; I hadn't noticed it," she
responded, with cool naïveté.

After an instant's reflection, it struck her
that this indisposition might be the cause
of her husband's unwonted severity. Sidney
was often hot-tempered and cross, but such
steady opposition to her wishes she was
quite unused to. The opal might not be
lost after all. She went to him and touched
his forehead with her cool lips.

"Poor Sidney, how hot his head is!"
she exclaimed. "I will send you a little
soup. Try to take something, won't you?"

He pressed her hand fondly. The least
act of kindness from her made him grateful.

"Dear Georgy! She does really love
me a little," he thought, as she glided
with her graceful step out of the room.
And then he began to meditate whether
it might not be possible to spare her the
humiliation of parting with her bracelet.

But soon a remembrance darted through
his mind, which made his head throb, and
his heart beat. No, no; it was impossible!
Any sacrifice must be made to avoid, if
possible, public disgrace and ruin. It
would be better for Georgy to give up
every jewel she possessed than to confront
that final blow. Yes; the sacrifice must
be made, for the present. And who could
tell what piece of good luck might befall
him before the end of the six months?

This was but the beginning of a period
of unspeakable anxiety for Frost, during
which he suffered alternations of hope and
despondency, and feverish expectation and
crushing humiliation, and during which
he was more and more delivered up to
the conviction that his wife was the
incarnation of cold egotism. He strove against
the conviction. Sometimes he fought with
it furiously and indignantly; sometimes he
tried to coax and lull it. When he should
be finally vanquished by the irrefragable
truth, it would go hard with him. Of all
this Georgina knew nothing. Had she
known, she would have cared; because she
would have perceived that when the truth
should have overcome the last of her
husband's self-delusions it must also go hard
with her.

Meanwhile there was anxiety enough
—with which Frost was intimately
connected—at the house in Gower-street.
Maud and the vicar were gone away to
Shipley. The upper rooms were shut up,
and the house seemed almost deserted.
There had come to be a barrier between Hugh
and his mother. It did not appear in their
outward behaviour to each other. He was
as dutifully, she as tenderly, affectionate as
ever. But the unrestrained confidence of
their intercourse was at an end. It must
always be so when two loving persons speak
together with the consciousness of a
forbidden topic lying like a naked sword
between them. Concealment was so intrinsically
antagonistic to Hugh's character, that
his mother's aversion to speak confidingly
with him respecting the confession she had
made once for all was extremely painful to
him. And his pain, which was evident to
her, only served to make her the more
reticent. She thought, "My son can never
again love me as he loved me before I
wounded his pride in me. He is kind
still; but I am not to him what I was."

Maud was sadly missed by both mother
and son. Her presence in the house had
been like the perfume of flowers in a room.
Now that she was gone, Zillah often longed
for the silent sweetness of her young face.
Maud had been able to soften the touch of
sternness which marked Hugh's character,
and which had in past years sent many a
pang of apprehension to his mother's heart
as she thought how hard his judgment of
her would be when the dreaded moment of
confession should arrive. And now the
confession had been made, and her son had
been loving and forbearing, and had uttered
no hint of reproach, and yet—and yet
Zillah tormented herself with the thought
that she was shut out from the innermost
chamber of his heart. Hugh had lost no
time in telling his mother of his interview
with Mr. Frost. He related all the details
of it conscientiously, but without his usual
frank spontaneity; for he saw in her face
how she shrank from the recital; and in
the constraint of his manner, she, on her
part, read coldness and estrangement. She
felt frightened as she pictured to herself
the conflict of those two strong wills.
Zillah, too, could be strong; but her
strength lay in endurance less than action.
And, besides, twenty years of secret self-
reproach and the sting of a tormented
and tormenting conscience had sapped the
firmness of her character.

"You did not show him any mercy, then,
Hugh?" she said, with her head leaning
against her small pale hand, when her son
had finished his narrative.