hich are seen
in complete combination in England only. Men of this breed possess a
nervous system without being aware of it; suffer affliction without
feeling it; exercise courage without a sense of danger; marry without
love; eat and drink without limit; and sink (big as they are), when
disease attacks them, without an effort to live.

Mrs. Westerfield released her guest's bull-neck at the word of command.
It was impossible not to submit to him--he was so brutal. Impossible not
to admire him--he was so big.

"Have you no love left for me?" was all she ventured to say.

He took the reproof good-humoredly. "Love?" he repeated. "Come! I like
that--after throwing me over for a man with a handle to his name. Which
am I to call you: 'Mrs?' or 'My Lady'?"

"Call me your own. What is there to laugh at, Jemmy? You used to be fond
of me; you would never have gone to America, when I married Westerfield,
if I hadn't been dear to you. Oh, if I'm sure of anything, I'm sure of
that! You wouldn't bear malice, dear, if you only knew how cruelly I
have been disappointed."

He suddenly showed an interest in what she was saying: the brute became
cheery and confidential. "So he made you a bad husband, did he? Up with
his fist and knocked you down, I daresay, if the truth was known?"

"You're all in the wrong, dear. He would have been a good husband if
I had cared about him. I never cared about anybody but you. It wasn't
Westerfield who tempted me to say Yes."

"That's a lie."

"No, indeed it isn't."

"Then why did you marry him?"

"When I married him, Jemmy, there was a prospect--oh, how could I resist
it? Think of being one of the Le Basques! Held in honor, to the end of
my life, by that noble family, whether my husband lived or died!"

To the barman's ears, this sounded like sheer nonsense. His experience
in the public-house suggested an explanation. "I say, my girl, have you
been drinking?"

Mrs. Westerfield's first impulse led her to rise and point indignantly
to the door. He had only to look at her--and she sat down again a tamed
woman. "You don't understand how the chance tempted me," she answered,
gently.

"What chance do you mean?"

"The chance, dear, of being a lord's mother."

He was still puzzled, but he lowered his tone. The true-born Briton
bowed by instinct before the woman who had jilted him, when she
presented herself in the character of a lord's mother. "How do you make
that out, Maria?" he asked polite