own wife. I can only retire into private life and hope to
console myself with my children and my books."

There was a reality of tragedy about him which for the moment
overcame her. She had no joke ready, no sarcasm, no feminine
counter-grumble. Little as she agreed with him when he spoke of the
necessity of retiring into private life because a man had written
to him such a letter as this, incapable as she was of understanding
fully the nature of the irritation which tormented him, still she
knew that he was suffering, and acknowledged to herself that she had
been the cause of the agony. "I am sorry," she ejaculated at last.
"What more can I say?"

"What am I to do? What can be said to the man? Warburton read the
letter, and gave it me in silence. He could see the terrible
difficulty."

"Tear it in pieces, and then let there be an end of it."

"I do not feel sure but that he has right on his side. He is, as you
say, certainly a blackguard, or he would not make such a claim. He is
taking advantage of the mistake made by a good-natured woman through
her folly and her vanity;"--as he said this the Duchess gave an
absurd little pout, but luckily he did not see it,--"and he knows
very well that he is doing so. But still he has a show of justice on
his side. There was, I suppose, no chance for him at Silverbridge
after I had made myself fully understood. The money was absolutely
wasted. It was your persuasion and then your continued encouragement
that led him on to spend the money."

"Pay it then. The loss will not hurt you."

"Ah;--if we could but get out of our difficulties by paying! Suppose
that I do pay it. I begin to think that I must pay it;--that after
all I cannot allow such a plea to remain unanswered. But when it is
paid;--what then? Do you think such a payment made by the Queen's
Minister will not be known to all the newspapers, and that I shall
escape the charge of having bribed the man to hold his tongue?"

"It will be no bribe if you pay him because you think you ought."

"But how shall I excuse it? There are things done which are holy as
the heavens,--which are clear before God as the light of the sun,
which leave no stain on the conscience, and which yet the malignity
of man can invest with the very blackness of hell! I shall know why
I pay this L500. Because she who of all the world is the nearest and
the dearest to me,"--she looked up into his face with amazement, as
he stood stretching out both