He put those questions as composedly, so far as his manner was
concerned, as if nothing remarkable had happened. But his eyes
and his lips betrayed him. They told me that he was suffering
keenly in secret. The extraordinary scene that had just passed,
far from depriving me of the last remains of my courage, had
strung up my nerves and restored my self-possession. I must have
been more or less than woman if my self-respect had not been
wounded, if my curiosity had not been wrought to the highest
pitch, by the extraordinary conduct of my husband's mother when
Eustace presented me to her. What was the secret of her despising
him, and pitying me? Where was the explanation of her
incomprehensible apathy when my name was twice pronounced in her
hearing? Why had she left us, as if the bare idea of remaining in
our company was abhorrent to her? The foremost interest of my
life was now the interest of penetrating these mysteries. Walk? I
was in such a fever of expectation that I felt as if I could have
walked to the world's end, if I could only keep my husband by my
side, and question him on the way.

"I am quite recovered," I said. "Let us go back, as we came, on
foot."

Eustace glanced at the landlady. The landlady understood him.

"I won't intrude my company on you, sir," she said, sharply. "I
have some business to do at Broadstairs, and, now I am so near, I
may as well go on. Good-morning, Mrs. Woodville."

She laid a marked emphasis on my name, and she added one
significant look at parting, which (in the preoccupied state of