window-panes at the driving sleet and rain, "and bring me a letter from you know who."
CHAPTER II.
Time and the hour run through the roughest day."
Paul will have been gone a week to-morrow, and I have not had a single letter from him, or tidings of any kind, good or bad. I know now that my presentiments were true ones, and that all is not well with him. If I could only think him careless, or neglectful, or busy, or that the letters have miscarried, I should not care; it is this deadly conviction of evil that makes my heart so full of fear. Is he dead? He said he would write, and he never broke his word yet; he knows how eagerly I must be looking out for his letters day by day, and he always hated to disappoint me of the smallest thing. The letter from Marseilles might have missed, but not the one from Rome, though indeed it is unlikely enough that either should be mislaid, for when letters are posted safely they usually come safe to hand, unless indeed they contain postage stamps, to tempt unvirtuous postmen to their ruin. If I could only be angry with him, if I could give him a good downright scolding in my heart, and call him hard names, I should be so much easier; but I cannot. I feel like a mother who is looking for a naughty little truant child, who has strayed away from its home and wandered into danger. Seeking for it in fear and trembling, she forbears to blame it for what if she find her darling dead, will not her angry words rise up and strike her as she looks on the silent, still, defenceless face? So I, who have lost sight of my lover, will not blame him until I know whether the fault be his or no, only if he comes back to me safe I shall be so angry with him, so angry. . . .
