I
care nothing for it. It is all one to me where I go, so long as
my wife is with me."
SECOND EXTRACT.
"The first cloud has risen. I entered the room unexpectedly just
now, and found her in tears.
"With considerable difficulty I persuaded her to tell me what had
happened. Are there any limits to the mischief that can be done
by the tongue of a foolish woman? The landlady at my lodgings is
the woman, in this case. Having no decided plans for the future
as yet, we returned (most unfortunately, as the event has proved)
to the rooms in London which I inhabited in my bachelor days.
They are still mine for six weeks to come, and Mercy was
unwilling to let me incur the expense of taking her to a hotel.
At breakfast this morning I rashly congratulated myself (in my
wife's hearing) on finding that a much smaller collection than
usual of letters and cards had accumulated in my absence.
Breakfast over, I was obliged to go out. Painfully sensitive,
poor thing, to any change in my experience of the little world
around me which it is possible to connect with the event of my
marriage, Mercy questioned the landlady, in my absence, about the
diminished number of my visitors and my correspondents.
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