“But I protest I have never been guilty of the worst—­the one thing—­I swear it, Philip; before God, I do!”

If any load was taken from Phil’s mind by this, he refrained from showing it.

“I came in search of you,” said he, in a low voice, “to see what I could do toward your happiness.  I knew that in your situation, a wife separated from her husband, dependent on heaven knew what for a maintenance, you must have many anxious, distressful hours.  If I had known where to find you, I should have sent you money regularly from the first, and eased your mind with a definite understanding.  And now I wish to do this—­nay, I will do it, for it is my right.  Whatever may have happened, you are still the Madge Faringfield I—­I loved from the first; nothing can make you another woman to me:  and though you chose to be no longer my wife, ’tis impossible that while I live I can cease to be your husband.”

The corners of her lips twitched, but she recovered herself with a disconsolate sigh.  “Chose to be no longer your wife,” she repeated.  “Yes, it appeared so.  I wanted to shine in the world.  I have shone—­on the stage, I mean; but that’s far from the way I had looked to.  A woman in my situation—­a wife separated from her husband—­can never shine as I had hoped to, I fancy.  But I’ve been admired in a way—­and it hasn’t made me happy.  Admiration can’t make a woman happy if she has a deeper heart than her desire of admiration will fill.  If I could have forgot, well and good; but I couldn’t forget, and can’t forget.  And one must have love, and devotion; but after having known yours, Philip, whose else could I find sufficient?”

And now there was a pause while each, fearing that the other might not desire reunion, hesitated to propose it; and so, each one waiting for the other to say the word, both left it unsaid.  When the talk was finally renewed, it was with a return of the former constraint.

She asked us, with a little stiffness of manner, when we had come to London; which led to our relation, between us, of all that had passed since her departure from New York.  She opened her eyes at the news of our residence in Hampstead, and lost her embarrassment in her glad, impulsive acceptance of my invitation to come and see us as soon as possible.  While Philip and she still kept their distance, as it were, I knew not how far to go in cordiality, or I should have pressed her to come and live with us.  She wept and laughed, at the prospect of seeing Fanny and my mother, and declared they must visit her in town.  And then her tongue faltered as the thought returned of Falconer’s probable interference with the quiet and safety of her further residence in London; and her face turned anxious.

“’Faith! you need have no fear on that score,” said Philip, quietly.  “Where does he live?”

She did not know, but she named a club, and a tavern, from which he had dated importunate letters to her before she left London.