The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope — Read

When Mr. Wharton was in Coleman Street, having his final interview with Mr. Hartlepod, there came a visitor to Mrs. Lopez in Manchester Square. Up to this date there had been great doubt with Mr. Wharton whether at last the banishment to Guatemala would become a fact. From day to day his mind had changed. It had been an infinite benefit that Lopez should go, if he could be got to go alone, but as great an evil if at last he should take his wife with him. But the father had never dared to express these doubts to her, and she had taught herself to think that absolute banishment with a man whom she certainly no longer loved, was the punishment she had to pay for the evil she had done. It was now March, and the second or third of April had been fixed for her departure. Of course, she had endeavoured from time to time to learn all that was to be learned from her husband. Sometimes he would be almost communicative to her; at other times she could get hardly a word from him.

But, through it all, he gave her to believe that she would have to go. Nor did her father make any great effort to turn his mind the other way. If it must be so, of what use would be such false kindness on his part? She had therefore gone to work to make her purchases, studying that economy which must henceforth be the great duty of her life, and reminding herself as to everything she bought that it would have to be worn with tears and used in sorrow.