respective of yours."

"Don't you think, Lady Kirton, that it may be as well if you let me and
my wife alone? We shall get along, no doubt, without interference; _with_
interference we might not do so."

What with one thing and another, the dowager's temper was inflammable
that morning; and when it reached that undesirable state she was apt to
say pretty free things, even for her.

"Edward would have made her the better husband."

"But she didn't like him, you know!" he returned, his eyes flashing with
the remembrance of an old thought; and the countess-dowager took the
sentence literally, and not ironically.

"Not like him. If you had had any eyes as Val Elster, you'd have seen
whether she liked him or not. She was dying for him--not for you."

He made no reply. It was only what he had suspected, in a half-doubting
sort of way, at the time. A little spaniel, belonging to one of the
gardeners, ran up and licked his hand.

"The time that I had of it!" continued the dowager. "But for me, Maude
never would have been forced into having you. And she _shouldn't_ have
had you if I'd thought you were going to turn out like this."

He wheeled round and faced her; his pale face working with emotion, but
his voice subdued to calmness. Lady Kirton's last words halted, for his
look startled even her in its resolute sternness.

"To what end are you saying this, madam? You know perfectly well that
you almost moved heaven and earth to get me: _you_, I say; I prefer to
leave my wife's name out of this: and I fell into the snare. I have not
complained of my bargain; so far as I know, Maude has not done so: but
if it be otherwise--if she and you repent of the union, I am willing to
dissolve it, as far as it can be dissolved, and to institute measures for
living apart."

Never, never had she suspected it would come to this. She sat staring at
him, her eyes round, her mouth open: scarcely believing the calm resolute
man before her could be the once vacillating Val Elster.

"Listen whilst I speak a word of truth," he said, his eyes bent on her
with a strange fire that, if it told of undisguised earnestness, told
also of inward fever. "I married your daughter, and I am ready and
willing to do my duty by her in all honour, as I have done it since the
day of the marriage. Whatever my follies may have been as a young man, I
am at least incapable of wronging my wife as a married one. _She_ has
had no cause to complain of want of affec