ose just as well. I suppose
you wish to express your indignation at the little care I seem to have
taken of Lesley. You cannot blame me more severely than I blame myself.
If she had been under your care I have no doubt we should not be in our
present dilemma; but it is no use fretting over what is past--or
inevitable. I can only say that I am exceedingly sorry. Will you not
loosen your cloak? This room is rather warm. I can't very well ring for
tea, I am afraid. You should call on me at Woburn Place, if you want
tea."

She loosened her cloak a little at the throat as he suggested. She had
taken off her gloves, and he could see that her slender white hands were
trembling. Somehow it occurred to him that he had spoken unkindly--but
he did not know how or why. His words were commonplace enough. But it
was his tone that had been cruel.

"I did not come to make any reproaches or complaints," she said at last,
in a low voice.

"No. That was very good of you. I have to thank you, then, for your
forbearance."

There was still coldness, still something perilously like scorn, in his
tone. It was unbearable to Lady Alice.

"Why do you talk in that way?" she broke out, suddenly. "I came to say
something quite different; and you speak as if you wanted to taunt
me--to insult me--to hurt me in every possible way? I do not understand
what you mean."

"You never did," said Caspar. The scorn had gone now, and the voice had
grown stern. "It is useless for us to talk together at all. You have
made intercourse impossible. I have no desire to hurt or taunt or insult
you, as you phrase it; but, if I am to speak the truth, I must say that
I feel very strongly that it is to _you_ and _your_ behavior that we owe
the greater part of this trouble. If you had been at my side, if Lesley
had been under a mother's wing, sheltered as only a mother could shelter
her, there never would have been an opportunity for that man Trent's
clandestine approaches, which will put a stigma on that poor child for
the rest of her life, and may--for aught I know--endanger my own neck! I
could put up with the loss and harm to myself; but once and for all let
me say to you, Alice, that you have neglected your duty as a mother as
much as I have neglected mine as a father; and that if you had been in
your proper place all this ruin and disgrace and misery might never have
come about."

The broken and vehement tones of his voice showed that his feelings were
power