udden sound, but it was only the French
clock on the mantelpiece striking eleven.

"Because," he resumed, having waited in vain for an answer, "if such
should really be your wish, I will accede to it. I desire your comfort,
your happiness beyond any earthly thing; and if living apart from me
would promote it, I will sacrifice my own feelings, and you shall not
hear a murmur. I would sacrifice my life for you."

She burst into tears. "Are you speaking at all for yourself? Do you wish
this?" she murmured.

"No."

"Then how can you be so cruel?"

"I should have thought it unjustifiably cruel, but that it has been
suggested to me. Tell me the truth, Maude."

Maude was turning sick with apprehension. She had begun to like her
husband during the latter part of their sojourn in London; had missed him
terribly during this long period of lonely ennui at Hartledon; and his
tender kindness to her for the past few fleeting hours of this their
meeting had seemed like heaven as compared with the solitary past. Her
whole heart was in her words as she answered:

"When we first married I did not care for you; I almost think I did not
like you. Everything was new to me, and I felt as one in an unknown sea.
But it wore off; and if you only knew how I have thought of you, and
wished for you here, you would never have said anything so cruel. You are
my husband, and you cannot put me from you. Percival, promise me that you
will never hint at this again!"

He bent and kissed her. His course lay plain before him; and if an ugly
mountain rose up before his mind's eye, shadowing forth not voluntary but
forced separation, he would not look at it in that moment.

"What could mamma mean?" she asked. "I shall ask her."

"Maude, oblige me by saying nothing about it. I have already warned Lady
Kirton that it must not be repeated; and I am sure it will not be. I wish
you would also oblige me in another matter."

"In anything," she eagerly said, raising her tearful eyes to his. "Ask me
anything."

"I intend to take your brother to the warmest seaside place England can
boast of, at once; to-day or to-morrow. The sea-air may do me good also.
I want that, or something else," he added; his tone assuming a sad
weariness as he remembered how futile any "sea-air" would be for a mind
diseased. "Won't you go with us, Maude?"

"Oh yes, gladly! I will go with you anywhere."

He left her to proceed to Captain Kirton's room, thinking that he and his