d there as she
stood. Lord Hartledon bent his face, and let it rest on hers.

"We shall be happy yet, Val; and I will be as good as gold. To begin
with, we will leave London at once. I ought not to remain, and I know you
have not liked it all along. It would have been better to wait until next
year, when we could have had our own house; only I was impatient. I felt
proud of being married; of being your wife--I did indeed, Val--and I was
in a fever to be amidst my world of friends. And there's a real
confession!" she concluded, laughing.

"Any more?" he asked, laughing with her.

"I don't remember any more just now. Which day shall we go? You shall
manage things for me now: I won't be wilful again. Shall the servants go
on first to Hartledon, or with us?"

"To Hartledon!" exclaimed Val. "Is it to Hartledon you think of going?"

"Of course it is," she said, standing up and looking at him in surprise.
"Where else should I go?"

"I thought you wished to go to Germany!"

"And so I did; but that would not do now."

"Then let us go to the seaside," he rather eagerly said. "Somewhere in
England."

"No, I would rather go to Hartledon. In one's own home rest and comfort
can be insured; and I believe I require them. Don't you wish to go
there?" she added, watching his perplexed face.

"No, I don't. The truth is, I cannot go to Hartledon."

"Is it because you do not care to face the Ashtons? I see! You would like
to have this business settled first."

Lord Hartledon hardly heard the words, as he stood leaning against the
open casement, gazing into the dark and misty past. No man ever shrank
from a prison as he shrank from Hartledon.

"I cannot leave London at all just yet. Thomas Carr is remaining here for
me, when he ought to be on circuit, and I must stay with him. I wish you
would go anywhere else, rather than to Hartledon."

The tone was so painfully earnest, that a momentary suspicion crossed her
of his having some other motive. It passed away almost as it arose, and
she accused him of being unreasonable.

Unreasonable it did appear to be. "If you have any real reason to urge
against Hartledon, tell it me," she said. But he mentioned none--save
that it was his "wish" not to go.

And Lady Hartledon, rather piqued, gave the necessary orders on the
following day for the removal. No further confidential converse, or
approach to it, took place between her and her husband; but up to the
last moment she thought he