sually denied to all; and said she was
not well enough to go out. From her husband she remained bitterly
estranged. If he attempted to be friendly with her, to ask what was
ailing her, she either sharply refused to say, or maintained a persistent
silence. Lord Hartledon could not account for her behaviour, and was
growing tired of it.

Poor Maude! That some grievous blow had fallen upon her was all too
evident. Resentment, anguish, bitter despair alternated within her
breast, and she seemed really not to care whether she lived or died. Was
it for _this_ that she had schemed, and so successfully, to wrest Lord
Hartledon from his promised bride Anne Ashton? She would lie back in her
chair and ask it. No labour of hers could by any possibility have brought
forth a result by which Miss Ashton could be so well avenged. Heaven is
true to itself, and Dr. Ashton had left vengeance with it. Lady Hartledon
looked back on her fleeting triumph; a triumph at the time certainly, but
a short one. It had not fulfilled its golden promises: that sort of
triumph perhaps never does. It had been followed by ennui, repentance,
dissatisfaction with her husband, and it had resulted in a very moonlight
sort of happiness, which had at length centred only in the children. The
children! Maude gave a cry of anguish as she thought of them. No; take it
altogether, the play from the first had not been worth the candle. And
now? She clasped her thin hands in a frenzy of impotent rage--with Anne
Ashton had lain the real triumph, with herself the sacrifice. Too well
Maude understood a remark her husband once made in answer to a reproach
of hers in the first year of their marriage--that he was thankful not to
have wedded Anne.

One morning Sir Alexander Pepps, on his way from the drawing-room
to his chariot--a very old-fashioned chariot that all the world knew
well--paused midway in the hall, with his cane to his nose, and
condescended to address the man with the powdered wig who was escorting
him.

"Is his lordship at home?"

"Yes, sir."

"I wish to see him."

So the wig changed its course, and Sir Alexander was bowed into
the presence. His lordship rose with what the French would call
_empressement_, to receive the great man.

"Thank you, I have not time to sit," said he, declining the offered chair
and standing, cane in hand. "I have three consultations to-day, and some
urgent cases. I grieve to have a painful duty to fulfil; but I must
infor