She sought feebly for his hand--his warm, firm, protecting hand--and let him take hers in it.
Then she knew that she was safe.
No, he never would forsake her, he had loved her--once and for always--with the love that has strength to hold its own through every thing and in spite of every thing.

Whatever she was, whatever the world might think her, she was his wife, and he loved her.

She crept into her husband's bosom, knowing that it was her sure refuge, never to be closed against her until she died.
The next thing she remembered was his speaking to Miss Gascoigne-- not harshly, or as if in great mental suffering, but in his natural voice.
"And now! Henrietta, just tell me the utmost you have to allege against my wife.

That Sir Edwin was known to her father and herself, of which acquaintance she never told her husband; that she has accidently met him since a few times; and that he has been rude enough to address a letter to her--where is it ?" It was lying on the table, for Phillis, in her precipitate disappearance, had forgotten it.

Dr.Grey put it into his pocket unopened.
"Well, Aunt Henrietta, is that all?
Have you any more to say, any thing else of which to accuse my wife?
Say it all out, only remember one thing, that you are saying it to a man, and about his wife." Brief as the words were, they implied volumes--all that Dr.Grey was, and every honest man should be, toward his wife, whom he has taken to himself, to cherish and protect, if necessary, against the whole world-- everything for which the bond of marriage was ordained, to be maintained unannulled by time, or change, or faultiness, perhaps even actual sin.