e you that these things cost money?"

"I will give them all up to-morrow if you wish it."

"That you know is nonsense."

"It was your doing to surround me with these things, and your
reproach is not just. Nay, it is not manly."

"A woman's idea of manliness is very extended. You expect to get
everything, and to do nothing. You talk of justice! Do you not know
that when I married you, I looked to your uncle's fortune?"

"Certainly not: had I known it, I should have told you how vain I
believed any such hope to be."

"Then, why on earth--?" But he refrained from finishing his question.
Even he could not bring himself to tell her that he had married her
with no other view. He merely slammed the door behind him as he left
the room. Yes; she had certainly thrown her pearl away. What a life
was this to which she had doomed herself! what treatment was this for
that Caroline Waddington, who had determined to win the world and
wear it! She had given herself to a brute, who had taken her only
because she might perhaps be the heiress of a rich old man.

And then she thought of that lost pearl. How could she do other than
think of it? She thought of what her life would have been had she
bravely committed herself to his hands, fearing nothing, trusting
everything. She remembered his energy during those happy days in
which he had looked forward to an early marriage. She remembered his
tenderness of manner, the natural gallantry of his heart, the loving
look of his bold eye; and then she thought of her husband.

Yes, she thought of him long and wildly. And as she did so, the
indifference with which she had regarded him grew into hatred. She
shuddered as her imagination made that frightful contrast between the
picture which her eyes would have so loved to look on if it were only
lawful, and that other picture to look on which was her legal doom.
Her brow grew wildly black as she thought of his caresses, his love,
which were more hateful to her even than his coarse ill-humour. She
thought of all this; and, as she did so, she asked herself that
question which comes first to the mind of all creatures when in
misery: Is there no means of release; no way of escape? was her bark
utterly ruined, and for ever?

That marriage without love is a perilous step for any woman who has a
heart within her bosom. For those who have none--or only so much as
may be necessary for the ordinary blood-circulating department--such
an arrangement may