er Nevil, spiteful, malicious: Oh! such a nest of
vileness as I pray to heaven I am not now, if it is granted me to give
life to another. Nevil's misfortunes date from that,' she continued, in
reply to the earl's efforts to soothe her. 'Not the loss of the Election:
that was no misfortune, but a lesson. He would not have shone in
Parliament: he runs too much from first principles to extremes. You see I
am perfectly reasonable, Everard: 'I can form an exact estimate of
character and things.' She smiled in his face. 'And I know my husband
too: what he will grant; what he would not, and justly would not. I know
to a certainty that vexatious as I must be to you now, you are conscious
of my having reason for being so.'

'You carry it so far--fifty miles beyond the mark,' said he. 'The man
roughed you, and I taught him manners.'

'No!' she half screamed her interposition. 'I repeat, he was in no way
discourteous or disobliging to me. He offered me a seat at his table,
and, heaven forgive me! I believe a bed in his house, that I might wait
and be sure of seeing Nevil, because I was very anxious to see him.'

'All the same, you can't go to the man.'

'I should have said so too, before my destiny touched me.'

'A certain dignity of position, my dear, demands a corresponding dignity
of conduct: you can't go.'

'If I am walking in the very eye of heaven, and feeling it shining on me
where I go, there is no question for me of human dignity.'

Such flighty talk offended Lord Romfrey.

'It comes to this: you're in want of a parson.'

Rosamund was too careful to hint that she would have expected succour and
seconding from one or other of the better order of clergymen.

She shook her head. 'To this, my dear lord: I have a troubled mind; and
it is not to listen nor to talk, that I am in need of, but to act.'

'Yes, my dear girl, but not to act insanely. I do love soundness of head.
You have it, only just now you're a little astray. We'll leave this
matter for another time.'

Rosamund held him by the arm. 'Not too long!'

Both of them applied privately to Mrs. Wardour-Devereux for her opinion
and counsel on the subject of the proposal to apologize to Dr. Shrapnel.
She was against it with the earl, and became Rosamund's echo when with
her. When alone, she was divided into two almost equal halves: deeming
that the countess should not insist, and the earl should not refuse: him
she condemned for lack of sufficient spiritual in