Her headache of the day before still remained, and ’Lena suggested that she should stay in her room, saying that she would herself see that every necessary attention was paid her.  This she could the more readily do, as Mrs. Livingstone had gone to Versailles with her husband.  That afternoon, as Mabel lay watching the drifting clouds as they passed and repassed before the window, her ear suddenly caught the sound of horses’ feet.  Nearer and nearer they came, until with a cry of delight she hid her face in the pillows, weeping for very joy—­for John Jr. had come home!  She could not be mistaken, and if there was any lingering doubt, it was soon lost in certainty, for she heard his voice in the hall below, his footsteps on the stairs.  He was coming, an unusual thing, to see her first.

But how did he know she was there, in his old room?  He did not know it; he was only coming to put his rifle in its accustomed place, and on seeing the chamber filled with the various paraphernalia of a woman’s toilet, he started, with the exclamation, “What the deuce!  I reckon I’ve got into the wrong pew,” and was going away, when Mabel called him back.  “Meb, you here?” said he. “You in this little tucked-up hole, that I always thought too small for me and my traps!  What does it mean?”

Mabel had carefully studied the tones of her husband’s voice, and knowing from the one he now assumed that he was not displeased with her, the sense of injustice done her by his mother burst out, and throwing her arms around his neck, she told him everything connected with her removal, asking what his mother meant by saying, “she should never get anything for their board,” and begging him “to take her away where they could live alone and be happy.”

Since he had left her, John Jr. had thought a great deal, the result of which was, that he determined on returning home much sooner than he at first intended, promising himself to treat Mabel decently, and if possible win back the respect of ’Lena, which he knew he had lost.  To his companions, who urged him to remain, he replied that “he had left his wife sick, and he could not stay longer.”

It cost him a great effort to say “my wife,” for never before had he so called her, but he felt better the moment he had done so, and bidding his young friends adieu, he started for home with the same impetuous speed which usually characterized his riding.  He had fully expected to meet Mabel in the parlor, and was even revolving in his own mind the prospect of kissing her, provided ’Lena were present.  “That’ll prove to her,” thought he, “that I am not the hardened wretch she thinks I am; so I’ll do it, if Meb doesn’t happen to be all bound up in camphor and aromatic vinegar, which I can’t endure, anyway.”

Full of this resolution he had hastened home, going first to his old room, where he had come so unexpectedly upon Mabel that for a moment he scarcely knew what to say.  By the time, however, that she had finished her story, his mind was pretty well made up.