eir minds that after
all it was the handsomest in London, felt instinctively they had never
coveted the ownership of its haughty beauty so little as to-day. Her
husband's cornet, walking with a brother subaltern, and saluting Lady
Bearwarden, or, rather, the carriage and horses, for her ladyship's
eyes and thoughts were miles away, expressed the popular feeling
perhaps with sufficient clearness when he thus delivered himself, in
reply to his companion's loudly-expressed admiration--

"The best-looking woman in London, no doubt, and the best turned out.
But I think Bruin's got a handful, you know. Tell ye what, my boy, I'm
generally right about women. She looks like the sort that, if they
once _begin_ to kick, never leave off till they've knocked the
splinter-bar into toothpicks and carried away the whole of the front
boot."

Maud, all unconscious of the light in which she appeared to this young
philosopher, was meanwhile hardening her heart with considerable
misgivings for the task she had in view, resolved that nothing should
now deter her from the confession she had delayed too long. She
reflected how foolish it was not to have taken advantage of the first
confidences of married life by throwing herself on her husband's
mercy, telling him all the folly, imprudence, crime of which she had
been guilty, and imploring to be forgiven. Every day that passed made
it more difficult, particularly since this coolness had arisen between
them, which, although she felt it did not originate with herself, she
also felt a little pliancy on her part, a little warmth of manner, a
little expressed affection, would have done much to counteract and put
away. She had delayed it too long; but "Better late than never." It
should be done to-day; before she dressed for dinner; the instant she
got home. She would put her arms round his neck, and tell him that the
worst of her iniquities, the most unpardonable, had been committed for
love of _him_! She could not bear to lose him (Maud forgot that in
those days it was the coronet she wanted to capture). She dreaded
falling in his esteem. She dared all, risked all, because without
him life must have been to her, as it is to so many, a blank and a
mistake. But supposing he put on the cold, grave face, assumed the
conventional tone she knew so well, told her he could not pardon such
unladylike, such unwomanly proceedings, or that he did not desire to
intrude on confidences so long withheld; or, wo