ne likes it."

To this last assertion Lady Clavering expressed no assent; nor did she
venture to contradict him.

Chapter V

Lady Ongar's Return

But Sir Hugh did not get away from Clavering Park on the next morning,
as he had intended. There came to him that same afternoon a message by
telegraph, to say that Lord Ongar was dead. He had died at Florence on
the afternoon of Christmas-day, and Lady Ongar had expressed her
intention of coming at once to England.

"Why the devil doesn't she stay where she is?" said Sir Hugh, to his
wife. "People would forget her there, and in twelve months time the row
would be all over."

"Perhaps she does not want to be forgotten," said Lady Clavering.

"Then she should want it. I don't care whether she has been guilty or
not. When a woman gets her name into such a mess as that, she should
keep in the background."

"I think you are unjust to her, Hugh."

"Of course you do. You don't suppose that I expect anything else. But if
you mean to tell me that there would have been all this row if she had
been decently prudent, I tell you that you're mistaken."

"Only think what a man he was."

She knew that when she took him, and should have borne with him while he
lasted. A woman isn't to have seven thousand a year for nothing."

"But you forget that not a syllable has been proved against her, or been
attempted to be proved. She has never left him, and now she has been
with him in his last moments. I don't think you ought to be the first to
turn against her."

"If she would remain abroad, I would do the best I could for her. She
chooses to return home; and as I think she's wrong, I won't have her
here--that's all. You don't suppose that I go about the world accusing
her?"

"I think you might do something to fight her battle for her."

"I will do nothing--unless she takes my advice and remains abroad. You
must write to her now, and you will tell her what I say. It's an
infernal bore, his dying at this moment; but I suppose people won't
expect that I'm to shut myself up."

For one day only did the baronet shut himself up, and on the following
he went whither he had before intended.

Lady Clavering thought it proper to write a line to the rectory,
informing the family there that Lord Ongar was no more. This she did in
a note to Mrs. Clavering; and when it was received, there came over the
faces of them all that lugubrious look, which is, as a matter of course,
assume