He expressed no wish for her return, and felt none.  Perhaps, it was merely indifferent to him how long she stayed away; but she had no assurance that he did not prefer to be without her.  And, for her own part, had she any desire to be back again?  Here she was not contented, but at home she would be even less so.

The line in his letter which had reference to the much-talked-of book only confirmed her distrust.  She had no faith in his work.  The revival of his energy from time to time was no doubt genuine enough, but she knew that its subsequent decline was marked with all manner of pretences.  Possibly he was still “reading hugely,” but the greater likelihood was that he had fallen into mere idleness.  It was significant of her feeling towards him that she never made surmises as to how he spent his leisure; her thoughts, consciously and unconsciously, avoided such reflections; it was a matter that did not concern her.  He had now a number of companions, men of whom her own knowledge was very vague; that they were not considered suitable acquaintances for her, of course meant that Reuben could have no profit from them, and would probably suffer from their contact.  But in these things she had long been passive, careless.  Experience had taught her how easy it was for husband and wife to live parted lives, even whilst their domestic habits seemed the same as ever; in books, that situation had formerly struck her as inconceivable, but now she suspected that it was the commonest of the results of marriage.  Habit, habit; how strong it is!

And how degrading!  To it she attributed this bluntness in her faculties of perception and enjoyment, this barrenness of the world about her.  It was dreadful to look forward upon a tract of existence thus vulgarized.  Already she recognized in herself the warnings of a possible future in which she would have lost her intellectual ambitions.  There is a creeping paralysis of the soul, and did she not experience its symptoms?  Already it was hard to apply herself to any study that demanded real effort; she was failing to pursue her Latin; she avoided German books, because they were more exacting than French; her memory had lost something of its grasp.  Was she to become a woman of society, a refined gossip, a pretentious echo of the reviews and of clever people’s talk?  If not, assuredly she must exert a force of character which she had begun to suspect was not in her.

Strange that the one person to whom she had disclosed something of her real mind was also the one who seemed at the greatest distance from her in this circle of friends.  Involuntarily, she had spoken to Miriam as to no one else.  This might be a result of old associations.  But had it a connection with that curious surmise she had formed during the first hour of her conversation with the Spences, and with Miriam herself—­that an unexpected intimacy was coming about between Miriam and Mallard?  For, in her frequent thoughts of Mallard, she had necessarily