He laughed at her, but at last had the grace to console her, and assure her she was tormenting herself for nothing.

“Time will show,” said she, sadly.

Time did show.

Three or four days he came, as usual, to laugh her out of her forebodings.  But presently his visits ceased.  She knew what that meant:  he was living like a gentleman, melting his diamond, and playing her false with the first pretty face he met.

This blow, coming after she had been so happy, struck Phoebe Dale stupid with grief.  The line on her high forehead deepened; and at night she sat with her hands before her, sighing, and sighing, and listening for the footsteps that never came.

“Oh, Dick!” she said, “never you love any one.  I am aweary of my life.  And to think that, but for that diamond—­oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear!”

Then Dick used to try and comfort her in his way, and often put his arm round her neck, and gave her his rough but honest sympathy.  Dick’s rare affection was her one drop of comfort; it was something to relieve her swelling heart.

“Oh, Dick!” she said to him one night, “I wish I had married him.”

“What, to be ill-used?”

“He couldn’t use me worse.  I have been wife, and mother, and sweetheart, and all, to him; and to be left like this.  He treats me like the dirt beneath his feet.”

“’Tis your own fault, Phoebe, partly.  You say the word, and I’ll break every bone in his carcass.”

“What, do him a mischief!  Why, I’d rather die than harm a hair of his head.  You must never lift a hand to him, or I shall hate you.”

“Hate me, Phoebe?”

“Ay, boy:  I should.  God forgive me:  ’tis no use deceiving ourselves; when a woman loves a man she despises, never you come between them; there’s no reason in her love, so it is incurable.  One comfort, it can’t go on forever; it must kill me, before my time and so best.  If I was only a mother, and had a little Reginald to dandle on my knee and gloat upon, till he spent his money, and came back to me.  That’s why I said I wished I was his wife.  Oh! why does God fill a poor woman’s bosom with love, and nothing to spend it on but a stone; for sure his heart must be one.  If I had only something that would let me always love it, a little toddling thing at my knee, that would always let me look at it, and love it, something too young to be false to me, too weak to run away from my long—­ing—­arms—­and—­year—­ning heart!” Then came a burst of agony, and moans of desolation, till poor puzzled Dick blubbered loudly at her grief; and then her tears flowed in streams.

Trouble on trouble.  Dick himself got strangely out of sorts, and complained of shivers.  Phoebe sent him to bed early, and made him some white wine whey very hot.  In the morning he got up, and said he was better; but after breakfast he was violently sick, and suffered several returns of nausea before noon.  “One would think I was poisoned,” said he.