Presently, with suppressed excitement as she saw the Young Doctor reining in the horses slowly, she added: "My husband--when have you arranged that I should see him ?" "When he gets back--home," Kitty replied, with an accent on the last word.
Mrs.Crozier started visibly.

"When he gets back home-back from where?
He is not here ?" she asked in a tone of chagrin.

She had come a long way, and she had pictured this meeting at the end of the journey with a hundred variations, but never with this one--that she should not see Shiel at once when the journey was over, if he was alive.

Was it hurt pride or disappointed love which spoke in her face, in her words?
After all, it was bad enough that her private life and affairs should be dragged out in a court of law; that these two kind strangers, whom she had never seen till a few minutes ago, should be in the inner circle of knowledge of the life of her husband and herself, without her self-esteem being hurt like this.

She was very woman, and the look of the thing was not nice to her eyes, while it must belittle her in theirs.