As Frank Churchill advanced into the dining-room in the fading light, he saw Barbara standing by the mantelpiece. Her face was turned towards him, but her eyes were dropped to the ground. She did not raise them as her husband entered, but remained in the same attitude, while he stopped short as the butler closed the door behind him. Frank Churchill was not entirely taken by surprise; he knew that his wife had been staying with her friend Mrs. Schröder, and this fact flashed across him when he first received Kate Mellon's summons: but he thought that she might have left the house; that she might have gone probably to her aunt Miss Lexden--at all events, that there was no earthly reason to prevent him from obeying that summons, and going to one who had always understood that she had a claim upon him. If his wife were there, it was not likely that he would come across her. She had now been absent some weeks from her home, and during that time she had not made the slightest sign, had not shown the least contrition, the least desire for a reconciliation; had not made the smallest advance in any one shape or way; consequently, she would be as opposed to any interview as he could be, and would take care to prevent it. As opposed as he could be? Yes; that was giving it a very definite range; he felt that he could trust himself now under any influence. All that had been ductile within him had gradually been growing hard and rigid; all his love and tenderness, his devotion to and pride in his wife had gradually died out; his very nature seemed to have changed: where he had been trusting, he had become sceptical, where he had been hopeful, he had become doubtful; where he had been generous, he had become cynical. All his good aspirations, his domestic virtues, seemed to have deserted him. What his mother had fondly hoped, when the separation between husband and wife came,--that her son would be restored to her as he was before his marriage,--never had been realised. For the first few days, fearing the gossip of the world, he came home regularly to the house in Great Adullam Street, where the old lady had been reinstalled; dined, and remained at home during the evening, until he went down to see the proof of his article at the Statesman office. But while at home, he was any thing but his old self. In the bygone days he had been full of chat and rattle, keeping his mother alive to all the current gossip of the day, talking to her of new books, new men, new opinions. Now he sat moody and silent over the dinner-table--moody and silent over his meerschaum-pipe after dinner over the fire, resting his chin on his hand, dreaming vaguely of the past, vaguely of the future. Then, after a little time, he began to tire of the sameness, to want excitement and variety, and he commenced to dine at the Retrenchment night after night, sitting long over his wine in the coffee-room, then going up and sitting in the smoke-room until late hours of the night. He never joined tables with any one at dinner; he never gave or accepted any further courtesy with his friends than the interchange of a short nod; but occasionally at night he would launch out into conversation in the smoke-room, where he began to gain some renown as a sayer of harsh sayings and bitter jests.
Yes, this was what remained of the genial, kind-hearted, easy-going Frank Churchill. His friends were in despair. His mother, poor old lady, felt that the state of things now was infinitely worse than when Barbara was in the home; for then, though she only saw her son occasionally, she believed him to be happy; but now she scarcely ever saw him at all, and knew him to be thoroughly wretched. She had no satisfaction in keeping house for him; there was no use in ordering dinner which he did not eat; in "tidying" a house which he did not look at; in hunting up and hustling into order servants who might have been as servile as Eastern slaves, or as insolent as American helps, for all their master cared. The old lady's occupation was gone, and she knew it; she felt even more than ever that her position was lost, that she could not hope to supply the place of her who was absent now, however well she and her son might have got on before his marriage; and she was proportionably miserable and disappointed. George Harding too was greatly annoyed at Frank's conduct. His loyal soul allowed that his friend had been hardly dealt by; but he contended boldly that since Barbara's first false step, Frank had been entirely in the wrong. He contended that the husband should have gone to seek his erring wife, and should have endeavoured, by every means in his power, to bring her back to his home. When you talked of pride and that sort of thing to George Harding in a matter of this kind, he snapped his fingers loudly and said, "stuff!" There was no hint at any crime, at even any lightness of conduct, was there? Well then, there was but one course to pursue. When Frank distinctly refused to follow this advice, Harding shrugged his shoulders and left him to himself; but when he saw the dreary, vapid, aimless life that his friend was pursuing, the change that had come over him in every way, he prayed for an opportunity of once more taking him to task in an affectionate and friendly spirit. This opportunity had not been given, and Harding could find no chance of fault-finding in his friend's work, which, though horribly bitter and slashing, was cleverer than ever.
The noise of the closing door rang drearily through the room, and Barbara keeping silence, Churchill felt it incumbent on him to speak. His throat was quite dry, his lips parched and quivering; but he made an effort, and the words came out. "You sent for me?" he said.
"I did," replied Barbara, still keeping her head bent and her eyes downcast: "I wished to speak with you."
"I am here," said Churchill coldly.
"I wished to tell you that--that I have learned a bitter lesson. I wished to tell you that, only to-night, only within the last few minutes, I have discovered that I have been deceived in--in certain matters that have passed between us--that I have done you--done you wrong."
Churchill merely bowed his head.
"I was present in the next room when what has just passed there took place. I was present, and I heard every word. It was by no chance, by no accident, I heard it; I was there intentionally and for the purpose. When that poor girl now lying there sent for you, I felt assured that I should gain the key to that mystery which ruined our married happiness; I felt assured that I should arrive at a solution of that mystery; and now it is solved. You, who know my pride, may judge what fearful interest that question must have had for me when I descended to such means to gain my ends."
Churchill bowed again, but said not a word.
"I have heard it," continued Barbara--"heard the story from first to last. That poor stricken creature lying there, on what we both know to be her deathbed, is ignorant even of my name far more of my relationship to you. From her lips I stand convicted of my mistake; from her lips I learn that I have done you an injustice. I asked you to come in here that I might acknowledge this to you." For the first time during the interview, she raised her eyes; they met those of her husband, which were cold and pitiless.