Dying might have felt easier to her but for one fact—­she loved her husband—­loved him, as she now knew, so passionately, so engrossingly, that all this misery converged in one single fear—­the fear that she might lose his love.  What the world thought of her—­what Miss Gascoigne thought of her, became of little account.  All she dreaded was what Dr. Grey would think.  Would he, in his large, tender, compassionate heart, on hearing her confession, say only “Poor thing! she could not help it; she was foolish and young,” or would he feel she had deceived him, and cast her off from his trust, his respect, his love for evermore?

In either case she hesitated not for a moment.  Love, bought by a deception, she knew to be absolutely worthless.  Knowing now what love was, she knew this truth also.  Had no discovery been made, she knew that she must have told all to Dr. Grey.  She hated, despised herself for having already suffered day after day to pass by without telling him, though she had continually intended to do it.  All this was a just punishment for her cowardice; for she saw now, as she had never seen before, that every husband, every wife, before entering into the solemn bond of marriage, has a right to be made acquainted with every secret of the other’s heart, every event of the other’s life that such confidence, then and afterward, should know no reservations, save and except trusts reposed in both before marriage by other people, which marriage itself is not justified in considering annulled.

But, the final moment being come, when a day—­half a day—­would decide it all—­decide the whole future of herself and her husband, Christian’s courage seemed to return.

She sat trembling, yet not altogether hopeless; very humble and yet strong, with the strength that the inward consciousness of deeply loving—­not of being loved, but of loving—­always gives to a woman, and waited till Dr. Grey came home.

When the parlor door opened she rushed forward, thinking it was he, but it was only Phillis—­Phillis, looking insolent, self-important, contemptuous, as she held out to her mistress a letter.

“There!  I’ve took it in for once, and given it to you, by yourself, as he bade me, but I’ll never take in another.  I’m an honest woman, and my master has been a good master to me.”

“Phillis!” cried Mrs. Grey, astonished.  But when she saw the letter she was astonished no more.

The tinted perfumed paper, the large seal, the dainty handwriting, all were familiar of old.

Fierce indignation, unutterable contempt, and then a writhing sense of personal shame, as if she were somehow accountable for this insult, swept by turns over Christian’s soul, until she recollected that she must betray nothing; for more than her own sake—­her husband’s—­she must not put herself in her servant’s power.

So she did not throw the letter in the fire, or stamp upon it, or do any of the frantic things she was tempted to do; she held it in her hand like a common note, and said calmly.