Her eyes were more astonishing than ever; but there was a touch of wildness in them, and they were grown, in truth, too big and staring for the dwindled face.  A pathetic face!—­as of one in whom the impulse to weep is always present, yet for ever stifled.  It had none of that noble intimacy with sorrow which so often dignifies a woman’s whole aspect; it spoke rather of the painful, struggling, desiring will, the will of passion and regret, the will which fights equally with the past and with the future, and is, for Buddhist and Christian alike, the torment of existence.

Again a sound of wheels drew her eyes to the road.  But it was only the Hawkshead butcher going his rounds.  He stopped below the cottage, and Miss Anna’s servant went out to him.  Phoebe sighed afresh in disappointment, her ears still strained the while to catch the first sound of that primitive horn, wherewith the postman in his cart, as he mounts the Langdale Valley, summons the dwellers in the scattered farms and cottages to come and take their letters.

But very likely there would be no letter at all.  This was Thursday.  On Saturday Miss Anna had met her and Carrie at Windermere, and had brought them to the old place.  Sunday and Monday had been filled with agitated consultations.  Then, on Tuesday, a neighbour living in Elterwater, and an old friend of Miss Anna’s, had gone up to London, bearing with her a parcel addressed to ’John Fenwick, Constable House, East Road, Chelsea,’ which she had promised to deliver, either personally or through one of the servants of the boarding-house whither she was bound.

This lady must have delivered it on Wednesday—­some time on Wednesday—­she would not pledge herself.  But probably not till the afternoon or evening.  If so, there could be no letter.  But if not a letter, a telegram; unless, indeed, John were determined not to take her back; unless her return were in his eyes a mere trouble and burden; unless they were to be finally and for ever separated.  Then he would take his time—­and write.

But—­Carrie!  Phoebe resumed her wandering from room to room and window to window, her mind deafened as it were by the rush of her own thoughts—­unable to rest for a moment.  He must want to see Carrie!  And that seeing must and should carry with it at least one interview with his wife, at least the permission to tell her story, face to face.

Was it only a week since, under a sudden impulse, she had written to Miss Anna?—­from the Surrey lodging, where for nearly two months she had hidden herself after their landing in England.  Each day since then had been at once the longest and the shortest she had ever known.  Every emotion of which she was capable had been roused into fresh life, crowding the hours; while at the same time each day had flown on wings of flame, bringing the moment—­so awful, yet so desired—­when she should see John’s face again.  After the slow years of self-inflicted exile; after the wavering weeks and months of repentance, doubt, and changing resolution, life had suddenly become breathless—­a hurrying rush down some Avernian descent, towards crashing pain and tumult.  For how could it end well?  She was no silly girl to suppose that such things can be made right again with a few soft words and a kiss.