And this was about all their discourse till they were at Winchester
Station.
'London papers in yet?' asked Brian.
'No, sir. You'll get them at Basingstoke.'
He took his wife into a first-class carriage—an extravagance which surprised her, knowing his precarious means.
'I hope you are not travelling first-class on my account,' she said; 'I am not accustomed to such luxury.'
'Oh, we can afford it to-day. I am not quite such a pauper as I was when I offered you those two sovereigns. If you would like to buy yourself a silk gown or a new bonnet, or anything in that line to-day, I can manage it.'
'No, thank you; I have everything I want,' she answered with a faint shiver.
The memory of that bygone day was too bitter.
'What a wonderful wife! I thought that to be in want of a new bonnet was a woman's normal condition,' said Brian, trying to be lively.
He had bought Punch and other comic journals at the station, and spread them out before his wife—as an intellectual feast. The breezy drive over the downs had revived her beauty a little. The eyelids had lost their red swollen look, but she was still very pale, and there was a nervous quiver of the lips now and then which betokened a tendency to hysteria. She sat at the open window, looking away towards those vanishing hills. A moment, and the tufted crest of St. Catherine's had gone—the low-lying meadows—the winding stream—the cathedral's stunted tower—it was all gone, like a dream.