"Near two!" repeated Mrs. Grey, as if to herself—and a heavy sigh told Pauline better than any comments could have done what was passing in her mother's mind. She determined that henceforth no servant should have her husband in his power again. So when she had heard her mother's door close for the night, she rang for the man and said,
"Robert, you can go to bed now, I will sit up for Mr. Wentworth."
"My child, how thin and pale you grow," Mrs. Grey would say, anxiously; "and that little cough of yours, too, Pauline—how it distresses me. What is the matter with you?"
"Nothing, mother," Pauline would reply, cheerfully; "I always cough a little, you know, if I am not well. And if I am looking paler and thinner than usual, that is to be expected—is it not?"
"I suppose so," Mrs. Grey would reply, half satisfied for the present that perhaps Pauline had truly accounted for her wan looks.
Ah! little did she know of the late hours of harassing watching that, night after night, Pauline spent waiting the coming in of her truant husband; and less did she know of the agonized feelings of the young wife, as she read in the glassy eye and flushed brow of her husband, the meaning of that once insignificant word "wild," which now she was beginning to apprehend in all its disgusting reality.
Pauline's spirit sometimes rose, and she remonstrated with Wentworth; but his loud tones subdued her at once. Not that she yet feared him, but dreaded lest those tones should reach her mother's ear. The one absorbing feeling, next to bitter disappointment, was concealment.
"Mother," she said, one day, "I want you to listen to what I have to say—and do not reject my proposition until you have fully considered it. Mr. Wentworth wants to go to housekeeping."
"To housekeeping, Pauline!" exclaimed Mrs. Grey. "Why, Pauline, Mr. Wentworth promised to remain with us—"
"Yes, mother," interrupted Pauline, "and will keep his promise if you say so. But what I wish is, that you should not oppose it."