He watched her a moment more, then checked himself and left her.
II She remained alone ten minutes, at the end of which her reflexions would have been seen to be deep--were interrupted by the entrance of her husband.

The interruption was indeed not so great as if the couple had not met, as they almost invariably met, in silence: she took at all events, to begin with, no more account of his presence than to hand him a cup of tea accompanied with nothing but cream and sugar.

Her having no word for him, however, committed her no more to implying that he had come in only for his refreshment than it would have committed her to say: "Here it is, Edward dear--just as you like it; so take it and sit down and be quiet." No spectator worth his salt could have seen them more than a little together without feeling how everything that, under his eyes or not, she either did or omitted, rested on a profound acquaintance with his ways.

They formed, Edward's ways, a chapter by themselves, of which Mrs.Brook was completely mistress and in respect to which the only drawback was that a part of her credit was by the nature of the case predestined to remain obscure.

So many of them were so queer that no one but she COULD know them, and know thereby into what crannies her reckoning had to penetrate.