Indeed, so long as she could dress, dance, dine, and chatter as much as she pleased, with her husband in constant attendance, Mrs.Welby had shown no open discontent with her lot; and if her caresses often hurt Eugenie more than they pleased, there had been no outward dearth of them.
Alack!--Eugenie's heart was wrung with pity for the young maimed creature; but the peevish image of the wife was swept away by the more truly tragic image of the husband.

Eugenie might try to persuade herself of the possibility of Elsie's recovery; her real instinct denied it.

Yet life was not necessarily threatened, it seemed, though certain fatal accidents might end it in a week.

The omens pointed to a long and fluctuating case--to years of hopeless nursing for Arthur, and complaining misery for his wife.
Years! Eugenie sat down in a corner of the Orangerie garden, locking her hands together, in a miserable pity for Arthur.

She knew well what a shining pinnacle of success and fame Welby occupied in the eyes of the world; she knew how envious were the lesser men--such a man as John Fenwick, for instance--of a reputation and a success they thought overdone and undeserved.