As he sat, his grave eyes fixed on the ground, and his mouth covered by the long thin brown hand—­the sort of hand you see in mediaeval portraits of student-gentlemen—­nothing of him was discernible except the gentleman and the student.  Not though he sat waiting for his “two-hours’ wife,” whom undoubtedly he had married for love—­pure love—­ the only reason for which anyone, man or woman, old or young, ought to dare to marry.  That he could feel as very few have the power to feel, no one who was any judge of physiognomy could doubt for a moment; yet he sat perfectly quiet—­the quietness of a man accustomed to something safer and higher than self-suppression—­self-control.  When Mr. Ferguson came in, he rose and began to speak about the weather and local topics as men do speak to one another—­and better that they should!—­even at such crises as weddings or funerals.

And Christian his wife?

She had run up stairs—­ran almost with her former light step, for her heart felt lightened with the childish smile of little Oliver—­to the attic which for the last nine months she had occupied—­the nursery, now made into a bedroom, and tenanted by herself and the two little Fergusons.  No special sanctity of appropriation had it; a large, somewhat bare room, in which not a thing was her own, either to miss or leave behind.  For, in truth, she had nothing of her own; the small personalities which she had contrived to drag about with her from lodging to lodging having all gone to pay debts, which she had insisted —­and Dr. Grey agreed—­ought to be paid before she was married.  So he had taken from her the desk, the work-table, and the other valueless yet well-prized feminine trifles, and brought her, as their equivalent, a sum large enough to pay both these debts and all her marriage expenses, which sum she, ignorant and unsuspicious, took gratefully, merely saying “he was very kind.”

She now looked round on her sole worldly possessions—­the large trunk which contained her ordinary apparel, and the smaller one, in which were packed all she needed for her fortnight’s marriage tour.  Her traveling dress lay on the bed—­a plain dark silk—­her only silk gown except the marriage one.  She let Mrs. Ferguson array her in it, and then, with her usual mechanical orderliness, began folding up the shining white draperies and laying them in the larger trunk.

“Shall I send that direct to the Lodge, my dear?”

Christian looked up absently.

“To Saint Bede’s Lodge—­you know—­that it may be ready for you when you come home?”

Home—­that blessed word which should send a thrill to the heart of any bride.  Alas! this bride heard it quite unheeding, saying only, “Do what you think best, Mrs. Ferguson.”

And then she proceeded to fasten her collar and complete the minutiae of her dress with that careful neatness which was an instinct with Christian, as it is with all womanly women, though how this poor motherless girl had ever learned womanliness at all was a marvel.  She answered chiefly in soft monosyllables to the perpetual stream of Mrs. Ferguson’s talk, till at last the good soul could no longer restrain herself.