“Indeed, did he! How did he know where we were living?”
“Oh, that! I met him one day as I was passing through Kensington Gardens, near the end of the Long Walk. He asked me where we were staying. At first I didn’t intend telling him. But he said he wanted particularly to see you; and so I gave him your address.”
“I wasn’t at home!”
“I told him that; but said I expected you every day. He came to inquire if you had come back.”
“Did he? What a wonderful deal he cared about my coming back. In the Long Walk you met him? I suppose you have been showing yourself in the Row every day?”
“No I haven’t, Richard. I’ve only been there once or twice—You can’t blame me for that? I’d like to know who could stay everlastingly here, in these paltry apartments, with that shrewish landlady constantly popping out and in, as if to see whether I’d carried off the contents of our trunks. Heaven knows, it’s a wretched existence at best; but absolutely hideous inside these lodgings!”
Glancing around the cheaply-furnished parlour, seeing the head and tail of the herring, with the other scraps of their poor repast, Swinton could not be otherwise than impressed with the truth of his wife’s words.
Their tone, too, had a satisfying effect. It was no longer that of imperious contradiction, such as he had been accustomed to for twelve months after marriage. This had ceased on that day when the leg of a chair coming in contact with his beloved’s crown had left a slight cicatrice upon her left temple—like a stain in statuary marble. From that hour the partner of his bosom had shown herself a changed woman—at least toward himself. Notwithstanding the many quarrels, and recriminative bickerings, that had preceded it, it was the first time he had resorted to personal violence. And it had produced its effect. Coward as she knew him to be, he had proved himself brave enough to bully her. She had feared him ever since. Hence her trepidation as she made answer to his inquiry as to whether any one had called.
There was a time when Frances Wilder would not have trembled at such a question, nor stammered in her reply.
She started again, and again showed signs of confusion, as the shuffling of feet on the flags outside was followed by a knock at the door.