When she had resolved to go down, she prepared herself by some
little acts which might seem mere folly to a hard onlooker;
they were her way of expressing to all spectators visible or invisible
that she had begun a new life in which she embraced humiliation.
She took off all her ornaments and put on a plain black gown,
and instead of wearing her much-adorned cap and large bows of hair,
she brushed her hair down and put on a plain bonnet-cap, which made
her look suddenly like an early Methodist.
Bulstrode, who knew that his wife had been out and had come in
saying that she was not well, had spent the time in an agitation
equal to hers. He had looked forward to her learning the truth
from others, and had acquiesced in that probability, as something
easier to him than any confession. But now that he imagined the
moment of her knowledge come, he awaited the result in anguish.
His daughters had been obliged to consent to leave him, and though he
had allowed some food to be brought to him, he had not touched it.
He felt himself perishing slowly in unpitied misery. Perhaps he
should never see his wife's face with affection in it again.
And if he turned to God there seemed to be no answer but the pressure
of retribution.
It was eight o'clock in the evening before the door opened and his
wife entered. He dared not look up at her.
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