“He has done nothing.”

“Well—­not much.  He has done what I’ve told you.  But, after all, what’s that?”

“Nothing to you, Lady Cayley, certainly,” said Anne, as she rang the bell.

She moved slowly towards the door.  Lady Cayley followed to the threshold, and laid her hand delicately on the jamb of the door as Mrs. Majendie opened it.  She raised to her set face the tender eyes of a suppliant.

“Mrs. Majendie,” said she, “don’t be hard on poor Wallie.  He’s never been hard on you.  He might have been.”  The latch sprang to under her gentle pressure.  “Look at it this way.  He has kept all his marriage vows—­except one.  You’ve broken all yours—­except one.  None of your friends will tell you that.  That’s why I tell you.  Because I’m not a good woman, and I don’t count.”

She moved her hand from the door.  It opened wide, and Lady Cayley walked serenely out.

She had said her say.

CHAPTER XXXII

Anne sat in her chair by the fireside, very still.  She had turned out the light, for it hurt her eyes and made her head ache.  She had felt very weak, and her knees shook under her as she crossed the room.  Beyond that she felt nothing, no amazement, no sorrow, no anger, nor any sort of pang.  If she had been aware of the trembling of her body, she would have attributed it to the agitation of a disagreeable encounter.  She shivered.  She thought there was a draught somewhere; but she did not rouse herself to shut the window.

At eight o’clock a telegram from Majendie was brought to her.  She was not to wait dinner.  He would not be home that night.  She gave the message in a calm voice, and told Kate not to send up dinner.  She had a bad headache and could not eat anything.

Kate had stood by waiting timidly.  She had had a sense of things happening.  Now she retired with curiosity relieved.  Kate was used to her mistress’s bad headaches.  A headache needed no explanation.  It explained everything.

Anne picked up the telegram and read it over again.  Every week, for nearly three years, she had received these messages.  They had always been sent from the same post office in Scale, and the words had always been the same:  “Don’t wait.  May not be home to-night.”

To-night the telegram struck her as a new thing.  It stood for something new.  But all the other telegrams had meant the same thing.  Not a new thing.  A thing that had been going on for three years; four, five, six years, for all she knew.  It was six years since their separation; and that had been his wish.

She had always known it; and she had always put her knowledge away from her, tried not to know more.  Her friends had known it too.  Canon Wharton, and the Gardners, and Fanny.  It all came back to her, the words, and the looks that had told her more than any words, signs that she had often wondered at and refused to understand.  They had known all the depths of it.  It was only the other day that Fanny had offered her house to her as a refuge from her own house in its shame.  Fanny had supposed that it must come to that.