What tortured her most was the intimation that Chiltern’s family connections were bringing pressure to bear upon him to save him from this supremest of all his follies.  And when she thought of this the strange eyes and baffling expression of Mrs. Grainger rose before her.  Was it true?  And if true, would Chiltern resist, even as she, Honora, had resisted, loyally?  Might this love for her not be another of his mad caprices?

How Honora hated herself for the thought that thus insistently returned at this period of snows and blasts!  It was January.  Had he seen the newspapers?  He had not, for he was cruising:  he had, for of course they had been sent him.  And he must have received, from his relatives, protesting letters.  A fortnight passed, and her mail contained nothing from him!  Perhaps something had happened to his yacht!  Visions of shipwreck cause her to scan the newspapers for storms at sea,—­but the shipwreck that haunted her most was that of her happiness.  How easy it is to doubt in exile, with happiness so far away!  One morning, when the wind dashed the snow against her windows, she found it impossible to rise.

If the big doctor suspected the cause of her illness, Mathilde knew it.  The maid tended her day and night, and sought, with the tact of her nation, to console and reassure her.  The little woman next door came and sat by her bedside.  Cruel and infinitely happy little woman, filled with compassion, who brought delicacies in the making of which she had spent precious hours, and which Honora could not eat!  The Lord, when he had made Mrs. Mayo, had mercifully withheld the gift of imagination.  One topic filled her, she lived to one end:  her Alpha and Omega were husband and children, and she talked continually of their goodness and badness, of their illnesses, of their health, of their likes and dislikes, of their accomplishments and defects, until one day a surprising thing happened.  Surprising for Mrs. Mayo.

“Oh, don’t!” cried Honora, suddenly.  “Oh, don’t!  I can’t bear it.”

“What is it?” cried Mrs. Mayo, frightened out of her wits.  “A turn?  Shall I telephone for the doctor?”

“No,” relied Honora, “but—­but I can’t talk any more—­to-day.”

She apologized on the morrow, as she held Mrs. Mayo’s hand.  “It—­it was your happiness,” she said; “I was unstrung.  I couldn’t listen to it.  Forgive me.”

The little woman burst into tears, and kissed her as she sat in bed.

“Forgive you, deary!” she cried.  “I never thought.”

“It has been so easy for you,” Honora faltered.

“Yes, it has.  I ought to thank God, and I do—­every night.”

She looked long and earnestly, through her tears, at the young lady from the far away East as she lay against the lace pillows, her paleness enhanced by the pink gown, her dark hair in two great braids on her shoulders.

“And to think how pretty you are!” she exclaimed.