I Forbid the Banns! — page 364: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

354 ‘“T FORBID THE BANNS!” would constitute a sound practical rule of life. It was not, however, upon this point that he reflected now that he found himself alone. All his thoughts were turned to the question of how to bring her back to him. In what direction was he to look for her ? If he suspected her of the least measure of unfaithful- ness to him even in thought, he would certainly have at least considered the possibility of her being near the man who had aroused his jealousy. But now it seemed that he was in his right mind—that the madness of jealousy had left him, for he never entertained the notion that she might have been controlled in her action by Sir Ecroyd Fairleigh. In what direction was he to look for her? After some thought he came to the conclusion that the fact of her having given the driver of the hansom directions to go to Waterloo meant nothing. She would probably have given the man another direction when he had taken her some distance away. ‘Then the thought flashed across him: ‘Why might she not have returned to her aunt in Chelsea ?”’ | He started up from where he had been sitting and seized his hat. He could hardly doubt that she had gone to Chel- sea. She would naturally seek to return to her former life, he felt. That would be the simplest step that she could take. He had heard long ago of young women threatening to return to their mothers at the first inconsiderate word that was uttered by their husbands. They rarely went back to their mothers ; it was, unfortunately, their mothers who usually came to them, he knew, witha view of relieving the strained relations between the husband and the wife. There were on record, he believed, cases in which the inter- position of the wife’s mother failed to make the household life a perpetual harmony. However this might be, he felt that it was almost certain that Bertha had returned to the side of Mrs. Hardy. He had no desire for another inter- (EONMIELDOOLKS (e(6)