"I do not; but I fancy early in the day."
"It's too bad. I am sick of this. The thing is over now. Why is it always cropping up?"
He spoke to himself rather than to her; but she heard him, and the colour flew over her pale face at his words. He left the room soon after, and then Harriet sat down in the weary way that had become habitual to her, and murmured:
"It is done and over; and he wonders why it is always cropping up, and I--"
Stewart Routh did not return home until late that night. Such absences had become common now, and Harriet made no comment then or ever. How she passed the hours of solitude he did not inquire, and, indeed, she could hardly have told. On this particular evening she had employed herself on the close and attentive perusal of a number of letters. They were all written by George Dallas, and comprised the whole of his correspondence with her. She read them with attentive eye and knitted brow; and when she locked the packet up in her desk again, she looked, as Mrs. Brookes had seen her, like a woman who had a purpose, and who clearly saw her way to its fulfilment.
But the next day Harriet was restless. She could do the thing that lay before her, but she wanted the time for doing it to be come; she wanted to get it over. If this were weakness, then in this Harriet was weak.
Immediately after breakfast Stewart Routh went out. Only a few words had been exchanged between him and Harriet on the subject of George's expected visit, and Harriet had gone to the drawing-room when George came. She met him with the old frank welcome which he remembered so well, and, in answer to his inquiry for Routh, said she was momentarily expecting him.
"You know what brought me back to England," George said, when he was seated, and the first greeting was over; "you got my message?"
"That bad news had reached you. Yes," replied Harriet. "I was just about to write to you. You would have had my letter to-day. I learned from the newspapers that your mother was ill and--"
"And went to see about it for me. I know all your goodness, Mrs. Routh, and can never thank you for it half enough. It is only of a piece, though, with all your goodness to me. You have always been the best and truest of friends. My old nurse told me all about your visit. God bless you, Mrs. Routh." And George Dallas took her hand, and, for the second time in his life, kissed it.