tion, but--"

"Oh, what a hypocrite!" interrupted the dowager, with a shriek. "And all
the time you've left her here neglected, while you were taking your
amusement in London! You've been dinner-giving and Richmond-going, and
theatre-frequenting, and card-playing, and race-horsing--and I shouldn't
wonder but you've been cock-fighting, and a hundred other things as
disreputable, and have come down here worn to a skeleton!"

"But if she is discontented, if she does not care for me, as you would
seem to intimate," he resumed, passing over the attack without notice;
"in short, if Maude would be happier without me, I am quite willing,
as I have just said, to relieve her of her distasteful husband."

"Of all the wicked plotters, you must be the worst! My darling
unoffending Maude! A divorce for her!"

"We are neither of us eligible for a divorce," he coolly rejoined. "A
separation alone is open to us, and that an amicable one. Should it come
to it, every possible provision can be made for your daughter's comfort;
she shall retain this home; she shall have, if she wishes, a town-house;
I will deny her nothing."

Lady Kirton rubbed her face carefully with her handkerchief. Not until
this moment had she believed him to be in earnest, and the conviction
frightened her.

"Why do you wish to separate from her?" she asked, in a subdued tone.

"I do not wish it. I said I was willing to do so if she wished it. You
have been taking pains to convince me that Maude's love was not mine,
that she was only forced into the marriage with me. Should this have been
the case, I must be distasteful to her still; an encumbrance she may wish
to get rid of."

The countess-dowager had overshot her mark, and saw it.

"Oh well! Perhaps I was mistaken about the past," she said, staring at
him very hard, and in a sort of defiance. "Maude was always very close.
If you said anything about separation now, I dare say it would kill her.
My belief is, she does care for you, and a great deal more than you
deserve."

"It may be better to ascertain the truth from Maude--"

"You won't say a syllable to her!" cried the dowager, starting up
in terror. "She'd never forgive me; she'd turn me out of the house.
Hartledon, _promise_ you won't say a word to her."

He stood back against the window, never speaking.

"She does love you; but I thought I'd frighten you, for you had no right
to send Maude home alone; and it made me very cross, because I saw how