Ah!' said
one.
'And a blue phial therein--h'm!' said another.
'And spurge-laurel leaves among the hearth-ashes. Oh-oh!' said a
third.
On his return home Sir William seemed to have aged years. But he
said nothing; indeed, it was a thing impossible. And from that hour
a ghastly estrangement began. She could not understand it, and
simply waited. One day he said, however, 'I must go abroad.'
'Why?' said she. 'William, have I offended you?'
'No,' said he; 'but I must go.'
She could coax little more out of him, and in itself there was
nothing unnatural in his departure, for he had been a wanderer from
his youth. In a few days he started off, apparently quite another
man than he who had rushed to her side so devotedly a few months
before.
It is not known when, or how, the rumours, which were so thick in
the atmosphere around her, actually reached the Lady Penelope's
ears, but that they did reach her there is no doubt. It was
impossible that they should not; the district teemed with them; they
rustled in the air like night-birds of evil omen. Then a reason for
her husband's departure occurred to her appalled mind, and a loss of
health became quickly apparent. She dwindled thin in the face, and
the veins in her temples could all be distinctly traced. An inner
fire seemed to be withering her away. Her rings fell off her
fingers, and her arms hung like the flails of the threshers, though
they had till lately been so round and so elastic.
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