Mr. Wentworth seemed soon to weary of the calm quiet of the domestic circle, for of an evening he was beginning to take his hat and go to the club, staying at first but for an hour or so, and gradually later and later.
"I am not going up stairs yet, mamma," said Pauline, "I will sit up for Mr. Wentworth."
"Robert will let him in, Pauline," replied Mrs. Grey, anxiously. "You are looking pale, my child--you had better go up."
"Very well," answered Pauline, quietly; and her mother satisfied, retired to her own room, supposing Pauline had done the same. But Pauline had let the man sit up for her husband the night before; and she had heard her mother, as she happened to be passing in the hall when Mrs. Grey did not see her, finding fault with him for being late in the morning; to which the servant answered, in extenuation, that he had been up so late for Mr. Wentworth that he had over-slept himself.
"How late was it, Robert?" asked Mrs. Grey, in a low voice.
"Near two!" repeated Mrs. Grey, as if to herself--and a heavy sigh told Pauline better than any comments could have done what was passing in her mother's mind. She determined that henceforth no servant should have her husband in his power again. So when she had heard her mother's door close for the night, she rang for the man and said,
"Robert, you can go to bed now, I will sit up for Mr. Wentworth."
"My child, how thin and pale you grow," Mrs. Grey would say, anxiously; "and that little cough of yours, too, Pauline--how it distresses me. What is the matter with you?"
"Nothing, mother," Pauline would reply, cheerfully; "I always cough a little, you know, if I am not well. And if I am looking paler and thinner than usual, that is to be expected--is it not?"
"I suppose so," Mrs. Grey would reply, half satisfied for the present that perhaps Pauline had truly accounted for her wan looks.
Ah! little did she know of the late hours of harassing watching that, night after night, Pauline spent waiting the coming in of her truant husband; and less did she know of the agonized feelings of the young wife, as she read in the glassy eye and flushed brow of her husband, the meaning of that once insignificant word "wild," which now she was beginning to apprehend in all its disgusting reality.