Surely no one ever paid more dearly for love's short madness than this unfortunate little Rose.
"Marry in haste and repent at leisure," she thought, with unspeakable bitterness.

"Oh, how happy I might have been to-day if I had only done right last year.

But I was mad and treacherous and false, and I dare-say it serves me right.

How can I ever look them in the face when I go home ?" The weary weeks dragged on, how wearily and miserably only Rose knew.
She never went out; she sat all day long in that shabby parlour, and stared blankly at the passers-by in the street, waiting, waiting.
The good-natured landlady and her daughter took charge of the baby during those wretched weeks of expectation, or Mrs.Reginald Stanford's only son would have been sadly neglected.
April was gone; May came in, bringing the anniversary of Rose's ill-starred marriage and finding her in that worst widowhood, a day of ceaseless tears and regrets to the unhappy, deserted wife.

The bright May days went by, one after another, passing as wretched days and more wretched nights do pass somehow; and June had taken its place.