Robert kept silence.
"I expected you to have been quite elated," said his friend in almost a tone of reproach. "You take it very quietly. At all events you must be thankful to know that we shall find out where she is, and all about her circumstances."
"I am thankful, God knows," said Robert, "as well as He, and He only, knows what I have suffered, in my ignorance, in the innumerable fears that have beset me, and," he said with a heavy sigh, "that may all be realised yet. I am thankful; but this intelligence, and my gratitude for it, do not bring me nearer to her. No, no, Charley, I shall never see her face again--never see her face again!" he repeated drearily; and leaning his elbows on the table, he laid his face on the open palms of his hands.
Yeldham looked uneasily at him. He knew that he was quoting Katharine's own words.
"Robert," he said impressively, "you must not despair, you must not give way in this fashion. You will see her face again, please God; you will see it as beautiful as ever, and with no cloud between you and it. I feel convinced of this, my dear fellow; and you must feel convinced of it too, if you will listen to your reason and not to your self-reproach. Just think what time does in all sorts of cases, and remember how much time has gone over since your wife left you."
"I think of it, Charley? Do you think I have not felt the passage of every hour of it?"
"I know you have," said Yeldham; "but I want you to think of it in another sense--its own sense. It effaces every thing--kingdoms and flies, men's strength and women's beauty, the deepest loves, the bitterest hatreds, the cruellest injuries, the firmest resolves. Believe me, Katharine has outlived her anger, and has been held to her purpose by pride and circumstances. She must always remain your wife--she must always remember that she is so; and, depend upon it, she will not be sorry to return to a quiet home with you, to whom she is still so dear. Three years have had their effect upon her, be sure of it. Rely upon it, she thinks more of her duty and less of her resentment now."
"Her duty!" said Robert, looking up from the palms of his hands with hollow, burning eyes; "her duty! O Charley, how can you or I talk of her duty to me?"
"I certainly can," returned Yeldham. "I don't wish to go back over the past, but nothing can absolve her from that duty; and I look to the faults for which each has to forgive the other as the strongest bond between you for the future."
Robert sighed, but made no reply. Yeldham continued: "And now, Robert, you will go to her at once, of course?"