what was the good of my telling you as a piece of news something which you knew already but i didn t know did you not she shut her eyes as he stood there with his arm around her so he was going to keep the farce up to the very end she felt like a woman in a as if her head was going surely she had not dreamed that she saw standing at the door of the safe in the dressing room a light in his hand and turning over the papers on the shelf no she had but just come into the house she was wide awake she had never been more wide awake in all her life then the light had gone out she had felt herself thrust on one side and afterwards had discovered that which the price of a wife was evidence enough to prove that it had been no dream that she had indeed been very wide awake of course he went on the cause of her silence this new state of affairs will make all the difference to us dearest your troubles are all over now there will be no more hollow cottage no more poverty no more parting and and all the horrible that has gone on since you gave yourself to me i don t see why i shouldn t tell them at once what your real position is no she said suddenly speaking with the strongest emphasis no that i absolutely and entirely forbid when the funeral is over i shall leave park and go back to hollow cottage no don t say a word i insist upon having my own way i want to be quiet for a little time i want to get over the horror of what i have gone through and i want my wife he said in a very tender tone then she said you must wait for her i would prefer that they believed that we were married after all was over they can put it a journey alone down to gratitude if they like she said with a harsh laugh such things have been done before i believe he looked at her doubtfully i don t know what has come over you he said at last one would think that you were sorry that i have come into my father s property that you liked me better when i was poor and could not do more for you than i would have done if you had been my mistress instead of my wife i don t understand you i confess that i don t understand you women are difficult to understand she answered i did like you better when you were poor � when you were all my own i was happy then but you will be happy now when you have got over this i shall never get over it she said bitterly i shall never be really happy again i would give ten years of my life to go back to those happy days when you came now and then and everything was bright and fresh and honest with us i shall never feel quite honest again my dear you take too exaggerated a view the price of a wife of the whole situation he said trying hard to make his tones patient perhaps i do let me alone don t worry me any more while i am here be my employer s son let me remain your father s nurse then when my last duty is over i will go home and try to pull myself together again so during the two days which followed they had no more of this kind she joined him at lunch and dinner and during the rest of the day she kept as much as possible out of his way then the day of the funeral came there were much coming to and fro the arrival of many carriages the scent of many flowers there was singularly little grief s face was drawn and white and the general verdict was that he was terribly cut up by his father s death of real however was the only one for the late john had not been blessed with many relations and those whom providence had given him he had not cultivated there were two distant of his late wife s to each of whom he had left a trifling a journey alone but there was no train of grief stricken women and the only manifest sorrow during that sad ceremony was from the son who was the heir to everything and the nurse who had attended him during the past few weeks there were the customary baked on their return to the house after the ceremony a dismal feast at which presided and at which naturally enough was not present the company was solemnly and the talk ran mostly on agricultural subjects then one by one they filed away and the two cousins the the doctor and a few others interested in the will passed into the library to hear the final disposition of john s worldly nobody had anything to say it was a natural thing that being the elder son and having been most with his father should inherit the major part of the property those who knew anything about shook their heads and looked wise when they realized how completely the dead man had his wings i o the price of a wife very wise said the to his nearest neighbor was always a sad it would have been quite within the bounds of possibility for our poor friend to have made him the heir he was set upon marrying money and it was indeed the grief of the later years of his life that he could not persuade him to do so i am sure it is a most merciful thing that everything is comfortably arranged and disposed of the 