Studies in Wives

by Marie Belloc Lowndes

"Does Miss Rosaleen Tara live here? Can I see her?"

"Yes, she lives 'ere right enough,"—the woman spoke with weary indifference,—"come this way."

Banfield paused; he had never thought the access to Rosaleen would be so simple, and he was bewildered by the ease with which this, to him so momentous a step, had been compassed.

He followed the woman up the narrow, wainscoted staircase to a tiny landing. "Stop," he said almost inaudibly, "I must tell you what to say—you must not show me straight in to her, like this."

But even as he spoke, there was another tinkle of the bell, and the woman began running heavily down the little staircase, leaving him standing in front of the door.

He knocked, but there came no answer, and at last he turned the handle, and walked into the room. It was empty of human presence, and yet his wife had stamped something of herself on the shabbily furnished sitting-room. Certain dainty trifles which he had known as hers were there, and before him, on the piano, was a music-case which he himself had given her.

The sight of this, his own gift, affected Banfield oddly, giving him a feeling that he had a right to be there. After a moment's hesitation, he walked over to the window, and looked out into the old Abbey garden. There he would wait patiently—for hours if need be—till Rosaleen came in.

Then, quite suddenly, there fell on his ear the voice which he had so often heard in dreams, and which he had of late so passionately longed to hear. He turned sharply round, and noticed for the first time that the door of the inner room was ajar. It was from thence that the light, indifferent tones floated impalpably towards him.

"Ah! but it's kind of you, doctor, to come so soon after Miss Lonsdale asked you to see me! I've only just come in, but I won't be a moment—I didn't expect you yet. Miss Lonsdale will be in long before you leave, I hope; she's almost as anxious about my voice as I am—and the faith she has in you, why, it's something wonderful!"

To Banfield, the words recalled, not Rosaleen his wife, but Rosaleen the girl, the dear bewitching stranger he had first known and wooed, though never won. Unconsciously he visualised the speaker; he seemed to see the quick, bird-like movements with which she was taking off her hat and smoothing her hair before the glass. He even saw her smiling—smiling as she used to smile at him in the very early days of their acquaintance.