All she said to Lady Francis was: "Are you going to divorce Lord Francis?"
"No, my dear," said that lady with a harsh little laugh. "I am not. Not that I could not get a divorce. He has been quite brute enough, but if I did it would be forgotten in about a quarter of an hour, whether I had divorced him or he had divorced me. I have a right to his name, and I mean to stick to it. It's about all I've got out of my marriage. I don't intend to go about as a divorced woman under my maiden name of Huggins. The idea does not smile on me. Besides, I know Francis. He will come back to me. He did—before. He has not a shilling, and he is in debt. He can't get on without me. I was a goose to marry him; but still I am the goose that lays the golden eggs."
Jos' parents sent Mary a pressing invitation to stay with them after the season. Mary went, and perhaps she tasted something more like happiness in that quiet old country house than she had known for many years. Jos' father and mother were devoted to her, with that devotion, artificial in its origin, but genuine in its later stages, of parents who have made up their minds that she was "the one woman" for their son. Mary played old Irish melodies in the evenings by the hour, and sang sweetly at prayers. She was always ready to listen to General Carstairs' history of the fauna of Dampshire, and to take an interest in Mrs Carstairs' Sunday School. She had a succession of the simplest white muslin gowns (she could still wear white) and wide-brimmed garden hats. Mary in the country was more rural than those who abide in it all the year round.
Jos was often there. There was no doubt about it. Jos was coming back to his early allegiance. Perhaps his parents, horrified by his single unaided attempt at matrimony, were tenderly pushing him back. Perhaps, in the entire exhaustion and numbness that had succeeded the shock of Elsa's defection, he hardly realised what others were planning round him. Perhaps when a man has been heartlessly slighted he turns unconsciously to the woman of whose undoubted love he is vaguely aware.
Jos sat at Mary's feet, not metaphorically but literally, for hours together by the sundial in the rose-garden; hardly speaking, like a man stunned. Still he sat there, and she did her embroidery, and looked softly down at him now and then. The doors of the narrow, airless prison of her love were open to receive him. They would be married presently, and she should make him give up the Army, and become a magistrate instead. She would never let him out of her sight. A wife's place is beside her husband. She knew, for how many wives compact of experience had assured her during the evening hour of feminine confidence when the back hair is let down, that the perpetual presence of the wife was the only safeguard for the well-being of that mysterious creature of low instincts, that half-tamed wild animal, always liable to break away unless held in by feminine bit and bridle, that irresponsible babe, that slave of impulse—man. She would give him perfect freedom of course. She should encourage him to go into the Yeomanry, and she should certainly allow him to go out without her for the annual training. He would be quite safe in a tent, surrounded by his own tenantry; but, on other occasions, she, his wife, would be ever by his side. That was the only way to keep a man good and happy.
Early in September Jos went away for a few days' shooting. Mary, who generally paid rounds of visits after the season at dull country houses (she was not greatly in request at the amusing ones), still remained with the Carstairs, who implored her to stay on whenever she suggested that she was paying them "a visitation."
Jos was to return that afternoon, for General Carstairs was depending on him to help to shoot his own partridges on the morrow. But the afternoon passed, and Jos did not come. The next day passed, and still no Jos. And no letter or telegram. His father and mother were silently uneasy. They said, no doubt he had been persuaded to stay on where he was, and had forgotten the shoot at home. Mary said, "No doubt," but a reasonless fear gathered like thin mist across her heart. Where was he? The letters that had been forwarded to his last address all came back. A week passed, and still no Jos, and no answers to autocratic telegrams.
Then suddenly Jos telegraphed from London saying he should return early that afternoon, and asking to be met at the station.
When the time drew near, Mary established herself with a book in the rose-garden. He would come to her there, as he had so often done before. The roses were well-nigh over, but in their place the sweet white faces of the Japanese anemones were crowding up round the old grey sundial. The sunny windless air was full of the cawing of rooks. It was the time and the place where a desultory love might come by chance, and linger awhile, not where a desperate love, brought to bay, would wage one of his pitched battles. Peace and rest were close at hand. Why had she been fearful? Surely all was well, and he was coming back. He was coming back.