treated him with marked contempt on more than one occasion when they happened to come across each other in Malsham Corn-exchange, which was held in the great covered quadrangular courtyard of the chief inn at Malsham, and was a popular lounge for the inhabitants of that town.  He had won her; her own sentiments upon the subject of this marriage were of very little consequence.  He had never expected to be loved by his wife, his own ideas of that passion called love being of the vaguest; but he meant to be obeyed by her.  She had begun well, had taken her new duties upon herself in a manner that gladdened his sordid soul; and although they had been married nearly a fortnight, she had given no hint of a desire to know the extent of his wealth, or where he kept any little hoard of ready money that he might have by him in the house.  Nor on market-day had she expressed any wish to go with him to Malsham to spend money on drapery; and he had an idea, sedulously cultivated by Mrs. Tadman, that young women were perpetually wanting to spend money at drapers’ shops.  Altogether, that first fortnight of his married life had been most satisfactory, and Mr. Whitelaw was inclined to regard matrimony as a wise and profitable institution.

The day’s work was done, and Ellen was sitting with Mrs. Tadman in the every-day parlour, waiting for the return of her lord and master from Malsham.  It was not a market-day, but Stephen Whitelaw had announced at dinner-time that he had an appointment at Malsham, and had set out immediately after dinner in the chaise-cart, much to the wonderment of Mrs. Tadman, who was an inveterate gossip, and never easy until she arrived at the bottom of any small household mystery.  She wondered not a little also at Ellen’s supreme indifference to her husband’s proceedings.

“I can’t for the life of me think what’s taken him to Malsham to-day,” she said, as she plied her rapid knitting-needles in the manufacture of a gray-worsted stocking.  “I haven’t known him go to Malsham, except of a market-day, not once in a twelvemonth.  It must be a rare business to take him there in the middle of the week; for he can’t abide to leave the farm in working-hours, except when he’s right down obliged to it.  Nothing goes on the same when his back’s turned, he says; there’s always something wrong.  And if it was an appointment with any one belonging to Malsham, why couldn’t it have stood over till Saturday?  It must be something out of the common that won’t keep a couple of days.”

Mrs. Tadman went on with her knitting, gazing at Ellen with an expectant countenance, waiting for her to make some suggestion.  But the girl was quite silent, and there was a blank expression in her eyes, which looked out across the level stretch of grass between the house and the river, a look that told Mrs. Tadman very few of her words had been heard by her companion.  It was quite disheartening to talk to such a person; but the widow went on nevertheless, being so full of her subject that she must needs talk to some one, even if that some one were little better than a stock or a stone.