"Belike he's travellin' after him," she suggested.

"Fifteen days, Mrs. Berry!"

"Ah, fifteen weeks, my dear, after sieh a man as that. He's a regular
meteor, is Sir Austin Feverel, Raynham Abbey. Well, so hark you here. I
says to myself, that knows him--for I did think my babe was in his
natural nest--I says, the bar'net'll never write for you both to come up
and beg forgiveness, so down I'll go and fetch you up. For there was
your mistake, my dear, ever to leave your husband to go away from ye one
hour in a young marriage. It's dangerous, it's mad, it's wrong, and it's
only to be righted by your obeyin' of me, as I commands it: for I has my
fits, though I am a soft 'un. Obey me, and ye'll be happy tomorrow--or
the next to it."

Lucy was willing to see comfort. She was weary of her self-inflicted
martyrdom, and glad to give herself up to somebody else's guidance
utterly.

"But why does he not write to me, Mrs. Berry?"

"'Cause, 'cause--who can tell the why of men, my dear? But that he love
ye faithful, I'll swear. Haven't he groaned in my arms that he couldn't
come to ye?--weak wretch! Hasn't he swore how he loved ye to me, poor
young man! But this is your fault, my sweet. Yes, it be. You should 'a
followed my 'dvice at the fust--'stead o' going into your 'eroics about
this and t'other." Here Mrs. Berry poured forth fresh sentences on
matrimony, pointed especially at young couples. "I should 'a been a fool
if I hadn't suffered myself," she confessed, "so I'll thank my Berry if I