Nina, with another saucy
smile. "How would you like it yourself?"

"And you were in pursuit of the same object. You can't deny that, only
he hit upon me first."

"I was more sorry for the other villain," said Lord Bearwarden, who
had heard long ago the history of Gentleman Jim's persecution of her
ladyship. "He was a daring, reckless scoundrel, and I should like to
have killed him myself, but _it_ did seem hard lines to be shot by his
own confederate in the row!"

"I pity that poor woman most of all," observed Lady Bearwarden, with a
sigh. "It is quite a mercy that she should have lost her senses. She
suffered so dreadfully till her mind failed."

"How is she?" "Have you seen her?" came from the others in a breath.

"I was with her this morning," answered Maud. "She didn't know me.
I don't think she knows anybody. They can't get her to read, nor do
needlework, nor even walk out into the garden. She's never still, poor
thing! but paces up and down the room mumbling over a bent halfcrown
and a knot of ribbon," added Lady Bearwarden, with a meaning glance
at her husband, "that they found on the dead man's body, and keeps
pressing it against her breast while she mutters something about their
wanting to take it away. It's a sad, sad sight! I can't get that wild
vacant stare out of my head. It's the same expression that frightened
me so on her face that day by the Serpentine. It has haunted me
ever since. She seemed to be looking miles away across the water at
something I couldn't see. I wonder what it was. I wonder what she
looks at now!"

"She's never been in her right senses, has she, since that dreadful
night?" asked Nina. "If she were a lady, and well dressed, and
respectable, one would say it's quite a romance. Don't you think
perhaps, after all, it's more touching as it is?" and Nina, who liked
to make little heartless speeches she did not mean, looked lovingly
on Dick, with her dark eyes full of tears, as she wondered what would
become of her if anything happened to _him_!

"I can scarcely bear to think of it," answered Maud, laying her
hand on her husband's shoulder. "Through all the happiness of that
night--far, far the happiest of my whole life--this poor thing's utter
misery comes back to me like a warning and a reproach. If I live to a
hundred I shall never forget her when she looked up to heaven from the
long rigid figure with its fixed white face, and tried to pray, and
couldn't, and didn't know how! O