Justin looked at her, then shrugged his shoulders, but said nothing.
Presently he rose to his feet.
"I must go back to my work," he said. "This snow has a very sleepy effect on me. I feel inclined to laze by a fire and do nothing."
Anstice was left alone. She could not work owing to her hurt arm, so she gave herself up to thought. Her husband loomed large in the vision of her mind.
"How could one woman spoil a man's life?" she pondered. "How could she destroy his faith in God, and trust in his fellow-creatures? How could she develop such concentrated bitterness of soul? And yet with it all, how tenderness and courteousness creeps out! He's a strange mixture. I wonder if I shall ever get to know him?"
The very next morning, Anstice received an urgent invitation from Lady Lucy to come and spend a week or ten days in town with her. She said she was not very well herself, and wanted companionship.
"I know your passion for helping those in need," she wrote; "so I expect you to respond at once to my appeal. Tell Justin that he cannot keep you shut up in that outlandish part of the world all the year round, with no change at all. Now he is at home, he can take charge, and you can have a holiday. Don't dare to refuse my invitation!"
Anstice read this through at breakfast time; then handed it to him.
"You know your aunt and her ways. What am I to say?"
He read it through with a frown upon his brow.