t I am only now free from the
rapacity of the De Courcys. You would hardly believe me if I told you
what I've had to pay. What do you think of two hundred and forty-five
pounds for bringing her body over here, and burying it at De Courcy?"

"I'd have left it where it was."

"And so would I. You don't suppose I ordered it to be done. Poor dear
thing. If it could do her any good, God knows I would not begrudge
it. We had a bad time of it when we were together, but I would have
spared nothing for her, alive or dead, that was reasonable. But to
make me pay for bringing the body over here, when I never had a
shilling with her! By George, it was too bad. And that oaf John De
Courcy,--I had to pay his travelling bill too."

"He didn't come to be buried;--did he?"

"It's too disgusting to talk of, Butterwell; it is indeed. And when
I asked for her money that was settled upon me,--it was only two
thousand pounds,--they made me go to law, and it seems there was no
two thousand pounds to settle. If I like, I can have another lawsuit
with the sisters, when the mother is dead. Oh, Butterwell, I have
made such a fool of myself. I have come to such shipwreck! Oh,
Butterwell, if you could but know it all."

"Are you free from the De Courcys now?"

"I owe Gazebee, the man who married the other woman, over a thousand
pounds. But I pay that off at two hundred a year, and he has a policy
on my life."

"What do you owe that for?"

"Don't ask me. Not that I mind telling you;--furniture, and the lease
of a house, and his bill for the marriage settlement,--d---- him."

"God bless me. They seem to have been very hard upon you."

"A man doesn't marry an earl's daughter for nothing, Butterwell. And
then to think what I lost! It can't be helped now, you know. As a man
makes his bed he must lie on it. I am sometimes so mad with myself
when I think over it all,--that I should like to blow my brains out."

"You must not talk in that way, Crosbie. I hate to hear a man talk
like that."

"I don't mean that I shall. I'm too much of a coward, I fancy." A
man who desires to soften another man's heart should always abuse
himself. In softening a woman's heart, he should abuse her. "But life
has been so bitter with me for the last three years! I haven't had
an hour of comfort;--not an hour. I don't know why I should trouble
you with all this Butterwell. Oh,--about the money; yes; that's just
how I stand. I owed Gazebee something over a thousand