Christopher Staines.




CHAPTER XIV.


Rosa fell ill with grief at the hotel, and could not move for some days;
but the moment she was strong enough, she insisted on leaving Plymouth:
like all wounded things, she must drag herself home.

But what a home! How empty it struck, and she heart-sick and desolate.
Now all the familiar places wore a new aspect: the little yard, where he
had so walked and waited, became a temple to her, and she came out
and sat in it, and now first felt to the full how much he had suffered
there--with what fortitude. She crept about the house, and kissed
the chair he had sat in, and every much-used place and thing of the
departed.

Her shallow nature deepened and deepened under this bereavement, of
which, she said to herself, with a shudder, she was the cause. And this
is the course of nature; there is nothing like suffering to enlighten
the giddy brain, widen the narrow mind, improve the trivial heart.

As her regrets were tender and deep, so her vows of repentance
were sincere. Oh, what a wife she would make when he came back! how
thoughtful! how prudent! how loyal! and never have a secret. She who had
once said, "What is the use of your writing? nobody will publish it,"
now collected and perused every written scrap. With simple affection