ude, in an access of resentment, all too
visible. "Told me what?"

"Why, about your heart. That's what I suppose it is."

Maude raised herself upon her elbow, her wan face fixed on her mother's.
"Is there anything the matter with my heart?" she calmly asked.

And then the old woman found that she had made a grievous mistake, and
hastened to repair it.

"I thought there might be, and asked Pepps. I've just asked him now; and
he's says there's nothing the matter with it."

"I wish there were!" said Maude.

"You wish there were! That's a pretty wish for a reasonable Christian,"
cried the tart dowager. "You want your husband to lecture you; saying
such things."

"I wish he were hanged!" cried Maude, showing her glistening teeth.

"My gracious!" exclaimed the wondering old lady, after a pause. "What has
he done?"

"Why did you urge me to marry him? Oh, mother, can't you see that I am
dying--dying of horror--and shame--and grief? You had better have buried
me instead."

For once in her selfish and vulgar mind the countess-dowager felt a
feeling akin to fear. In her astonishment she thought Maude must be going
mad.

"You'd do well to get some sleep, dear," she said in a subdued tone; "and
to-morrow you must get up; Pepps says so; he thinks you want rousing."

"I have not slept since; it's not sleep, it's a dead stupor, in which
I dream things as horrible as the reality," murmured Maude, unconscious
perhaps that she spoke aloud. "I shall never sleep again."

"Not slept since when?"

"I don't know."

"Can't you say what you mean?" cried the puzzled dowager. "If you've any
grievance, tell it out; if you've not, don't talk nonsense."

But Lady Hartledon, though thus sweetly allured to confession, held her
tongue. Her half-scattered senses came back to her, and with them a
reticence she would not break. The countess-dowager hardly knew whether
she deserved pitying or shaking, and went off in a fit of exasperation,
breaking in upon her son-in-law as he was busy looking over some accounts
in the library.

"I want to know what is the matter with Maude."

He turned round in his chair, and met the dowager's flaxen wig and
crimson face. Val did not know what was the matter with his wife any more
than the questioner did. He supposed she would be all right when she grew
stronger.

"She says it's _you_" said the gentle dowager, improving upon her
information. "She has just been wishing you were hanged."

"Ah, you