It was impossible to get back that night; and not wishing to be recognized in their present sorry condition, he took her to a miserable little coffee-house close to the station, whence they departed early in the morning, travelling almost without speaking, under the sense that it was one of those dreary situations occurring in married life which words could not mend, and reaching their own door at noon.
The months passed, and neither of the twain ever ventured to start a conversation upon this episode.

Ella seemed to be only too frequently in a sad and listless mood, which might almost have been called pining.

The time was approaching when she would have to undergo the stress of childbirth for a fourth time, and that apparently did not tend to raise her spirits.
'I don't think I shall get over it this time!' she said one day.
'Pooh! what childish foreboding! Why shouldn't it be as well now as ever ?' She shook her head.

'I feel almost sure I am going to die; and I should be glad, if it were not for Nelly, and Frank, and Tiny.' 'And me!' 'You'll soon find somebody to fill my place,' she murmured, with a sad smile.

'And you'll have a perfect right to; I assure you of that.' 'Ell, you are not thinking still about that--poetical friend of yours ?' She neither admitted nor denied the charge.