CHAPTER XV.
The months dragged themselves slowly away as though they hated to go, but would infinitely prefer to remain and gloat over my misery. I could not make up my mind to confer with my mother again. Although she had told me she would aid me, I seemed unable to pluck up the courage to know the worst.
My life at Tavistock Villa was unchanged. My relations with my husband were colder than ever. Though never once did he allude to the subject of the conversation recorded in the last chapter, I could see that it had made an impression upon him. He looked at me wistfully; our conversation was strained; a horrible form had stepped in between us, assuming shape as definitely as did the geni in the Arabian Nights story, from a mere shadow.
You would think that his course of action would have been changed. Not a bit of it. We
