She sat gazing out of the window over the snow, and a new question was in her heart.  Was it as a husband—­that he loved her?  Did their intercourse have that intangible quality of safety that belonged to married life?  And was it not as a mistress rather than a wife that, in their isolation, she watched his moods so jealously?  A mistress!  Her lips parted, and she repeated the word aloud, for self-torture is human.

Her mind dwelt upon their intercourse.  There were the days they spent together, and the evenings, working or reading.  Ah, but had the time ever been when, in the depths of her being, she had felt the real security of a wife?  When she had not always been dimly conscious of a desire to please him, of a struggle to keep him interested and contented?  And there were the days when he rode alone, the nights when he read or wrote alone, when her joy was turned to misery; there were the alternating periods of passion and alienation.  Alienation, perhaps, was too strong a word.  Nevertheless, at such times, her feeling was one of desolation.

His heart, she knew, was bent upon success at Grenoble, and one of the books which they had recently read together was a masterly treatise, by an Englishman, on the life-work of an American statesman.  The vast width of the country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, was stirred with politics:  a better era was coming, the pulse of the nation beating with renewed life; a stronger generation was arising to take the Republic into its own hands.  A campaign was in progress in the State, and twice her husband had gone some distance to hear the man who embodied the new ideas, and had come back moody and restless, like a warrior condemned to step aside.  Suppose his hopes were blighted—­what would happen?  Would the spirit of reckless adventure seize him again?  Would the wilds call him? or the city?  She did not dare to think.

It was not until two mornings later that Hugh tossed her across the breakfast table a pink envelope with a wide flap and rough edges.  Its sender had taken advantage of the law that permits one-cent stamps for local use.

“Who’s your friend, Honora?” he asked.

She tried to look calmly at the envelope that contained her fate.

“It’s probably a dressmaker’s advertisement,” she answered, and went on with the pretence of eating her breakfast.

“Or an invitation to dine with Mrs. Simpson,” he suggested, laughingly, as he rose.  “It’s just the stationery she would choose.”

Honora dropped her spoon in her egg-cup.  It instantly became evident, however, that his remark was casual and not serious, for he gathered up his mail and departed.  Her hand trembled a little as she opened the letter, and for a moment the large gold monogram of its sender danced before her eyes.

“Dear Madam, Permit me to thank you in the name of the Trustees of
the Grenoble Hospital for your generous contribution, and believe
me, Sincerely yours,