The winter and the spring had passed, and the house was complete.

　　It was a fine morning in the early part of June, and Barnet, thoughnot in the habit of rising early, had taken a long walk beforebreakfast; returning by way of the new building. A sufficientlyexciting cause of his restlessness to-day might have been theintelligence which had reached him the night before, that LucySavile was going to India after all, and notwithstanding therepresentations of her friends that such a journey was unadvisablein many ways for an unpractised girl, unless some more definiteadvantage lay at the end of it than she could show to be the case.

　　Barnet's walk up the slope to the building betrayed that he was in adissatisfied mood. He hardly saw that the dewy time of day lent anunusual freshness to the bushes and trees which had so recently puton their summer habit of heavy leafage, and made his newly-laid lawnlook as well established as an old manorial meadow. The house hadbeen so adroitly placed between six tall elms which were growing onthe site beforehand, that they seemed like real ancestral trees; andthe rooks, young and old, cawed melodiously to their visitor.

　　The door was not locked, and he entered. No workmen appeared to bepresent, and he walked from sunny window to sunny window of theempty rooms, with a sense of seclusion which might have been verypleasant but for the antecedent knowledge that his almost paternalcare of Lucy Savile was to be thrown away by her wilfulness.

　　Footsteps echoed through an adjoining room; and bending his eyes inthat direction, he perceived Mr. Jones, the architect. He had cometo look over the building before giving the contractor his finalcertificate. They walked over the house together. Everything wasfinished except the papering: there were the latest improvements ofthe period in bell-hanging, ventilating, smoke-jacks, fire-grates,and French windows. The business was soon ended, and Jones, havingdirected Barnet's attention to a roll of wall-paper patterns whichlay on a bench for his choice, was leaving to keep anotherengagement, when Barnet said, 'Is the tomb finished yet for Mrs.

　　Downe?'

　　'Well--yes: it is at last,' said the architect, coming back andspeaking as if he were in a mood to make a confidence. 'I have hadno end of trouble in the matter, and, to tell the truth, I amheartily glad it is over.'

　　Barnet expressed his surprise. 'I thought poor Downe had given upthose extravagant notions of his? then he has gone back to the altarand canopy after all? Well, he is to be excused, poor fellow!'

　　'O no--he has not at all gone back to them--quite the reverse,'

　　Jones hastened to say. 'He has so reduced design after design, thatthe whole thing has been nothing but waste labour for me; till inthe end it has become a common headstone, which a mason put up inhalf a day.'

　　'A common headstone?' said Barnet.

　　'Yes. I held out for some time for the addition of a footstone atleast. But he said, "O no--he couldn't afford it."'

　　'Ah, well--his family is growing up, poor fellow, and his expensesare getting serious.'

　　'Yes, exactly,' said Jones, as if the subject were none of his. Andagain directing Barnet's attention to the wall-papers, the bustlingarchitect left him to keep some other engagement.

　　'A common headstone,' murmured Barnet, left again to himself. Hemused a minute or two, and next began looking over and selectingfrom the patterns; but had not long been engaged in the work when heheard another footstep on the gravel without, and somebody enter theopen porch.

　　Barnet went to the door--it was his manservant in search of him.

　　'I have been trying for some time to find you, sir,' he said. 'Thisletter has come by the post, and it is marked immediate. Andthere's this one from Mr. Downe, who called just now wanting to seeyou.' He searched his pocket for the second.

　　Barnet took the first letter--it had a black border, and bore theLondon postmark. It was not in his wife's handwriting, or in thatof any person he knew; but conjecture soon ceased as he read thepage, wherein he was briefly informed that Mrs. Barnet had diedsuddenly on the previous day, at the furnished villa she hadoccupied near London.

　　Barnet looked vaguely round the empty hall, at the blank walls, outof the doorway. Drawing a long palpitating breath, and with eyesdowncast, he turned and climbed the stairs slowly, like a man whodoubted their stability. The fact of his wife having, as it were,died once already, and lived on again, had entirely dislodged thepossibility of her actual death from his conjecture. He went to thelanding, leant over the balusters, and after a reverie, of whoseduration he had but the faintest notion, turned to the window andstretched his gaze to the cottage further down the road, which wasvisible from his landing, and from which Lucy still walked to thesolicitor's house by a cross path. The faint words that came fromhis moving lips were simply, 'At last!'

　　Then, almost involuntarily, Barnet fell down on his knees andmurmured some incoherent words of thanksgiving. Surely his virtuein restoring his wife to life had been rewarded! But, as if theimpulse struck uneasily on his conscience, he quickly rose, brushedthe dust from his trousers and set himself to think of his nextmovements. He could not start for London for some hours; and as hehad no preparations to make that could not be made in half-an-hour,he mechanically descended and resumed his occupation of turning overthe wall-papers. They had all got brighter for him, those papers.

　　It was all changed--who would sit in the rooms that they were toline? He went on to muse upon Lucy's conduct in so frequentlycoming to the house with the children; her occasional blush inspeaking to him; her evident interest in him. What woman can in thelong run avoid being interested in a man whom she knows to bedevoted to her? If human solicitation could ever effect anything,there should be no going to India for Lucy now. All the paperspreviously chosen seemed wrong in their shades, and he began fromthe beginning to choose again.

　　While entering on the task he heard a forced 'Ahem!' from withoutthe porch, evidently uttered to attract his attention, and footstepsagain advancing to the door. His man, whom he had quite forgottenin his mental turmoil, was still waiting there.

　　'I beg your pardon, sir,' the man said from round the doorway; 'buthere's the note from Mr. Downe that you didn't take. He called justafter you went out, and as he couldn't wait, he wrote this on yourstudy-table.'

　　He handed in the letter--no black-bordered one now, but a practical-looking note in the well-known writing of the solicitor.

　　'DEAR BARNET'--it ran--'Perhaps you will be prepared for theinformation I am about to give--that Lucy Savile and myself aregoing to be married this morning. I have hitherto said nothing asto my intention to any of my friends, for reasons which I am sureyou will fully appreciate. The crisis has been brought about by herexpressing her intention to join her brother in India. I thendiscovered that I could not do without her.

　　'It is to be quite a private wedding; but it is my particular wishthat you come down here quietly at ten, and go to church with us; itwill add greatly to the pleasure I shall experience in the ceremony,and, I believe, to Lucy's also. I have called on you very early tomake the request, in the belief that I should find you at home; butyou are beforehand with me in your early rising.--Yours sincerely,C. Downe.'

　　'Need I wait, sir?' said the servant after a dead silence.

　　'That will do, William. No answer,' said Barnet calmly.

　　When the man had gone Barnet re-read the letter. Turning eventuallyto the wall-papers, which he had been at such pains to select, hedeliberately tore them into halves and quarters,............