to meet her husband. But,
goodness! Fleetwood, why do you frown? You acknowledge the marriage,
she has the name of the church; she was married out of that old Lord
Levellier's house. You drove her--I won't repeat the flighty business.
You left her, and she did her best to follow you. Will the young men of
our time not learn that life is no longer a game when they have a woman
for partner in the match!

You don't complain of her flavour of a foreign manner? She can't be so
very... Admiral Baldwin's daughter has married her brother; and he is a
military officer. She has germs of breeding, wants only a little rub of
the world to smooth her. Speak to the point:--do you meet her here? Do
you refuse?'

'At present? I do.'

'Something has to be done.'

'She was bound to stay where I left her.'

'You are bound to provide for her becomingly.'

'Provision shall be made, of course.'

'The story will... unless--and quickly, too.'

I know, I know!'

Fleetwood had the clang of all the bells of London chiming Whitechapel
at him in his head, and he betrayed the irritated tyrant ready to decree
fire and sword, for the defence or solace of his tender sensibilities.

The black flash flew.

'It 's a thing to mend as well as one can,' Lady Arpington said. 'I am
not inquisitive: you had your reasons or chose to act without any. Get
her away from that place. She won't come to me unless it 's to meet her
husband. Ah, well, temper does not solve your problem; husband you
are, if you married her. We'll leave the husband undiscussed: with
this reserve, that it seems to me men are now beginning to play the
misunderstood.'

'I hope they know themselves better,' said Fleetwood; and he begged for
the name and number of the house in the Whitechapel street, where she
who was discernibly his enemy, and the deadliest of enemies, had now her
dwelling.

Her immediate rush to that place, the fixing of herself there for
an assault on him, was a move worthy the daughter of the rascal Old
Buccaneer; it compelled to urgent measures. He, as he felt horribly in
pencilling her address, acted under compulsion; and a woman prodded
the goad. Her mask of ingenuousness was flung away for a look of craft,
which could be power; and with her changed aspect his tolerance changed
to hatred.

'A shop,' Lady Arpington explained for his better direction: 'potatoes,
vegetable stuff. Honest people, I am to believe. She is indifferent to
her food, she says. S