use it is. You must be mad."

"You are cold as ice," says he, losing his head. "No other woman but
yourself would consent to live as you do. A wife, and yet no wife!"

"Mr. Lowry," says Lady Stafford, with much dignity but perfect temper,
"you forget yourself. I must really beg you not to discuss my private
affairs. The life I lead might not suit you or any single one of your
acquaintance, but it suits me, and that is everything. You say I am
'cold,' and you are right: I am. I fancied (wrongly) my acknowledged
coldness would have prevented such a scene as I have been forced to
listen to, by you, to-day. You are the first who has ever dared to
insult me. You are, indeed, the first man who has ever been at my feet,
metaphorically speaking or otherwise; and I sincerely trust," says Lady
Stafford, with profound earnestness, "you may be the last, for anything
more unpleasant I never experienced."

"Have you no pity for me?" cries he, passionately. "Why need you scorn
my love? Every word you utter tears my heart, and you,--you care no
more than if I were a dog! Have you no feeling? Do you never wish to be
as other women are, beloved and loving, instead of being as now----"

"Again, sir, I must ask you to allow my private life to _be_
private," says Cecil, still with admirable temper, although her color
has faded a good deal, and the fingers of one hand have closed
convulsively upon a fold of her dress. "I may, perhaps, pity you, but I
can feel nothing but contempt for the love you offer, that would lower
the thing it loves!"

"Not lower it," says he, quickly, grasping eagerly at what he vainly
hopes is a last chance. "Under the circumstances a divorce could be
easily obtained. If you would trust yourself to me there should be no
delay. You might easily break this marriage-tie that can scarcely be
considered binding."

"And supposing--I do not wish to break it? How then? But enough of
this. I cannot listen any longer. I have heard too much already. I must
really ask you to leave me. Go."

"Is this how your friendships end?" asks he, bitterly. "Will you deny I
was even so much to you?"

"Certainly not. Though I must add that had I known my friendship with
you would have put me in the way of receiving so much insult as I have
received to-day, you should never have been placed upon my list. Let me
pray you to go away now, to leave Herst entirely for the present,
because it would be out of the question my seeing you again