Third Period Chapter 51 What Next

"We must not awake him," she said, "whatever news you bring. His
perfect recovery depends entirely on rest and quiet. There"--she
pointed to the chimneypiece--"is a letter in my lady's handwriting. I
am afraid I know only too well what it tells him."

"What does it tell?"

"This very morning," Mrs. Vimpany went on, "I called at her lodging.
She has gone away."

"Gone away? My lady gone away? Where is she gone?"

"Where do you think she is most likely to have gone?"

"Not?--oh!--not to her husband? Not to him!--oh! this is more
terrible--far more terrible--than you can imagine."

"You will tell me why it is now so much more terrible. Meantime, I find
that the cabman was told to drive to Victoria. That is all I know. I
have no doubt, however, but that she has gone back to her husband. She
has been in a disturbed, despondent condition ever since she arrived in
London. Mr. Mountjoy has been as kind as usual: but he has not been
able to chase away her sadness. Whether she was fretting after her
husband, or whether--but this I hardly think--she was comparing the man
she had lost with the man she had taken--but I do not know. All I do
know is that she has been uneasy ever since she came from France, and
what I believe is that she has been reproaching herself with leaving
her husband without good cause."