"Not getting on at all. She is there, and I am elsewhere. Now and then I see her for five minutes in their garden; but that's pretty nearly stopped now. Until last night, she has been unable to escape from the house for I don't know how long. Of course it is not a lively condition of things."
"It seems to me to be just the same with you as though you had not been married."
"It is precisely the same, Edina."
[CHAPTER XV.]
LOOKING OUT FOR EDINA
In the bow-window of the shabby dining-room at Spring Lawn stood Major Raynor, his wife and children. They were on the tiptoe of expectation, waiting for Edina. A vehicle of some kind could be discerned at a distance; opinions differed as to whether it was a fly or not. The evening sunbeams fell athwart the green lawn and on the flowers, whose perfume mingled with that of the hay, lying in cocks in the adjoining field.
"I am sure it is a fly," cried little Kate, shading her eyes that she might see the better.
"And I tell you it is not," retorted Alfred. "That thing, whatever it is, is coming at a snail's pace, like a waggon. Do you suppose Edina would come in a waggon, little stupid?"
"I don't think it is a waggon," said Major Raynor, who had the aid of an opera-glass. "It has two horses, at any rate. The driver is whipping them up, too: and see—it is coming along now at a smart pace. I should say it is a fly."
Every now and then the vehicle lost itself behind trees and hedges and turnings from the temporary glimpses they caught, it seemed to have something like a cart-load of luggage upon its roof. Which was extremely unlikely to belong to Edina.