Page:The Last Chronicle of Barset Vol 2.djvu/246

220 He was now at the door, with his hand on the lock, and was wondering why she should remain so long within without making herself heard. Then he opened it, and found her seated in a lounging-chair, with her back to the door, and he could see that she had a volume of a novel in her hand. He understood it all. She was pretending to be indifferent to her husband's return. He walked up to her, thinking that she would recognize his step; but she made no sign of turning towards him. He saw the motion of her hair over the back of the chair as she affected to make herself luxuriously comfortable. She was striving to let her husband see that she cared nothing for him, or for his condition, or for his jealousy, if he were jealous,—or even for his ruin. "Mrs. Broughton," he said, when he was close to her. Then she jumped up quickly, and turned round, facing him. "Where is Dobbs?" she said. "Where is Broughton?"

"He is not here?"

"He is in the house, for I heard him. Why have you come back?"

Dalrymple's eye fell on the tattered canvas, and he thought of the doings of the past month. He thought of the picture of three Graces, which was hanging in the room below, and he thoroughly wished that he had never been introduced to the Broughton establishment. How was he to get through his present difficulty? "No," said he, "Broughton did not come. It was Mr. Musselboro whose steps you heard below."

"What is he here for? What is he doing here? Where is Dobbs? Conway, there is something the matter. He has gone off!"

"Yes;—he has gone off."

"The coward!"

"No; he was not a coward;—not in that way."

The use of the past tense, unintentional as it had been, told the story to the woman at once. "He is dead," she said. Then he took both her hands in his and looked into her face without speaking a word. And she gazed at him with fixed eyes, and rigid mouth, while the quick coming breath just moved the curl of her nostrils. It occurred to him at the moment that he had never before seen her so wholly unaffected, and had never before observed that she was so totally deficient in all the elements of real beauty. She was the first to speak again. "Conway," she said, "tell it me all. Why do you not speak to me?"

"There is nothing further to tell," said he.

Then she dropped his hands and walked away from him to the