She was lost in reverie before it, just as in the morning.
'What are you doing?' he asked.
She started and turned. 'I am looking at my husb- my statue, to see
if it is well done,' she stammered. 'Why should I not?'
'There's no reason why,' he said. 'What are you going to do with
the monstrous thing? It can't stand here for ever.'
'I don't wish it,' she said. 'I'll find a place.'
In her boudoir there was a deep recess, and while the Earl was
absent from home for a few days in the following week, she hired
joiners from the village, who under her directions enclosed the
recess with a panelled door. Into the tabernacle thus formed she
had the statue placed, fastening the door with a lock, the key of
which she kept in her pocket.
When her husband returned he missed the statue from the gallery,
and, concluding that it had been put away out of deference to his
feelings, made no remark. Yet at moments he noticed something on
his lady's face which he had never noticed there before. He could
not construe it; it was a sort of silent ecstasy, a reserved
beatification. What had become of the statue he could not divine,
and growing more and more curious, looked about here and there for
it till, thinking of her private room, he went towards that spot.
After knocking he heard the shutting of a door, and the click of a
key; but when he entered his wife was sitting at work, on what was
in those days called knotting.
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