She calculated with the utmost care the probable date of the epistle’s arrival.  She thought she made sure of allowing plenty of time for all possible delays.  The safety of her letters she had managed, with Hester’s aid, to arrange for.  They were forwarded to her bankers and called for.  Only the letters from India were of any importance, and they were not frequent.  She told herself that she must be even more than usually patient this time.  When the letter arrived, if he told her he felt it proper that he should return, no part of the strange experience she had passed through would be of moment.  When she saw his decorous, well-bred face and heard his correctly modulated voice, all else would seem like an unnatural dream.

In her relief at the decent composure of the first floor front in Mortimer Street the days did not seem at first to pass slowly.  But as the date she had counted on drew near she could not restrain a natural restlessness.  She looked at the clock and walked up and down the room a good deal.  She was also very glad when night came and she could go to bed.  Then she was glad when the morning arrived, because she was a day nearer to the end.

On a certain evening Dr. Warren said to his wife, “She is not so well to-day.  When I called I found her looking pale and anxious.  When I commented on the fact and asked how she was, she said that she had had a disappointment.  She had been expecting an important letter by a mail arriving yesterday, and it had not come.  She was evidently in low spirits.”

“Perhaps she has kept up her spirits before because she believed the letter would come,” Mrs. Warren speculated.

“She has certainly believed it would come.”

“Do you think it will, Harold?”

“She thinks it will yet.  She was pathetically anxious not to be impatient.  She said she knew there were so many reasons for delay when people were in foreign countries and very much occupied.”

“There are many reasons, I daresay,” said Mrs. Warren with a touch of bitterness,” but they are not usually the ones given to waiting, desperate women.”

Dr. Warren stood upon the hearthrug and gazed into the fire, knitting his brows.

“She wanted to tell or ask me something this afternoon,” he said, “but she was afraid.  She looked like a good child in great trouble.  I think she will speak before long.”

She looked more and more like a good child in trouble as time passed.  Mail after mail came in, and she received no letter.  She did not understand, and her fresh colour died away.  She spent her time now in inventing reasons for the non-arrival of her letter.  None of them comprised explanations which could be disparaging in any sense to Walderhurst.  Chiefly she clung to the fact that he had not been well.  Anything could be considered a reason for neglecting letter writing if a man was not well.  If his illness had become serious she would, of course, have heard from his doctor.  She would not allow herself to contemplate that.  But if he was languid and feverish, he might so easily put off writing from day to day.  This was all the more plausible as a reason, since he had not been a profuse correspondent.  He had only written when he had found he had leisure, with decent irregularity, so to speak.