"Poor Mr. Fenwick! It is discouraging, I admit. But, oh dear! fancy if there's some poor thing breaking her heart somewhere! It's easy enough for you—you don't believe in her."
"That's it; I don't!" He dropped a tone of pleasantry, and spoke more seriously. "Dear Mrs. Nightingale, if my absence of conviction of the existence of this lady did not rise to the height of a definite disbelief in her altogether—well, I should be wretched. But I feel very strongly that I need not make myself a poor miserable about her. I don't believe in her, that's the truth!"
"You don't believe a man could forget his wife?"
"I can't believe it, try how I may! Anything—anybody else—but his wife, no!"
Fenwick had come in late in the evening, as he was in the habit of doing, often three or four times in the week. He looked across from his side of the hearthrug, where he had been standing watching the fire, but could not see the face opposite to him. Mrs. Nightingale was sitting with her back to the light sheltering her eyes from the blaze with a fire-screen. So Fenwick saw only the aureole the lamp made in her hair—it was a fine halo with a golden tinge. Sally was very proud of mamma's hair; it was much better fun to do than her own, said the vulgar child. But even had she not been hidden by the screen, the expression on her face might have meant nothing to him—that is, nothing more than the ready sympathy he was so well accustomed to. A little anxiety of eye, a tremor in the lip, the birth of a frown without a sequel—these might have meant anything or nothing. She might even have turned whiter than she did, and yet not be said to show the cross-fire of torments in her heart. She was, as we told you, a strong woman, either by nature, or else her life had made her one.
For, think of what the recesses of her memory held; think of the past she looked back on, and knew to be nothing but a blank to him. Think of what she was, and he was, as he stood there and said, "Anybody else, but his wife;" and then rather shaped the "No" that followed with his lips than said it; but shook an emphasis into the word with his head.
"When are you going to get your hair cut, Mr. Fenwick?" said she; and he did think she changed the subject abruptly, without
apparent cause. "It's just like a lion's mane when you shake it like that."
"To-morrow, if you think it too disreputable."