t establishments, he who had scarcely been in Brighton
a year. The rapid progress, he felt, was characteristic of him.

Hilda kept silence, for the sole reason that she could think of no words
to say. As for the matter of the investment, it appeared to her to be
inexpressibly uninteresting. From under the lashes of lowered eyes she
saw his form shadowily in front of her.

"You don't mean to say Sarah's been making herself disagreeable
already!" he said. And his tone was affectionate and diplomatic, yet
faintly ironical. He had perceived that something unusual had occurred,
perhaps something serious, and he was anxious to soothe and to justify
his wife. Hilda perfectly understood his mood and intention, and she was
reassured.

"Hasn't Sarah told you?" she asked in a harsh, uncontrolled voice,
though she knew that he had not seen Sarah.

"No; where is she?" he inquired patiently.

"It's Louisa," Hilda went on, with the sick fright of a child compelled
by intimidation to affront a danger. Her mouth was very dry.

"Oh!"

"She lost her temper and made a fearful scene with Sarah, on the stairs;
she said the most awful things."

George laughed low, and lightly. He guessed Louisa's gift for foul
insolence and invective.

"For instance?" George encouraged. He was divining from Hilda's singular
tone that tact would be needed.

"Well, she said you'd got a wife living in Devonshire."

There was a pause.

"And who'd told her that?"

"Florrie."

"_In_deed!" muttered George. Hilda could not decide whether his voice
was natural or forced.

Then he stepped across to the door, and opened it.

"What are you going to do to her?" Hilda questioned, as it were
despairingly.

He left the room and banged the door.

"It's not true," Hilda was beginning to say to herself, but she seemed
to derive no pleasure from the dawning hope of George's innocence.

Then George came into the room again, hesitated, and shut the door
carefully.

"I suppose it's no good shilly-shallying about," he said, in such a tone
as he might have used had he been vexed and disgusted with Hilda. "I
have got a wife living, and she's in Devonshire! I expect she's been
inquiring in Turnhill if I'm still in the land of the living. Probably
wants to get married again herself."

Hilda glanced at his form, and suddenly it was the form of a stranger,
but a stranger who had loved her. And she thought: "Why did I let this
stranger love me?" It was scarce b