"Oh, no!--no--but you are so just--so strict in all these things--"

"I hope I am; and yet not the less do I understand how all this has come
about. Now, Lucy,--now that you have ceased to fear me--tell me the
amount."

She strove to speak, but could not.

"Three figures or four? tell me."

"I am afraid--yes, I am afraid four," murmured Lady Lucy, and hiding her
face from his view; "yes, four figures, and my quarter received last week
gone every penny."

"Lucy, every bill shall be paid this day; but you must reward me by being
happy."

"Generous! dearest! But, Walter, if you had been a poor man, what then?"

"Ah, Lucy, that would have been a very different and an infinitely sadder
story. Instead of the relinquishment of some indulgence hardly to be
missed, there might have been ruin, and poverty, and disgrace. You have
one excuse,--at least you knew that I could pay at last."

"Ah, but at what a price! The price of your love and confidence."

"No, Lucy--for your confession has been voluntary; and I will not ask
myself what I should have felt had the knowledge come from another. After
all, you have fallen to a temptation which besets the wives of the rich
far more than those of poor or struggling gentlemen. Tradespeople are
shrewd enough in one respect--they do not press their commodities and
long credit in quarters where ultimate payment seems doubtful--though--"

"They care not what domestic misery they create among the rich."

"Stay: there are faults on both sides, not the least of them being that
girls in your station are too rarely taught the value of money, or that
integrity in money matters should be to them a point of honor second only
to one other. Now listen, my darling, before we dismiss this painful
subject forever. You have the greatest confidence in your maid, and
_entre nous_ she must be a good deal in the secret. We shall bribe her to
discretion, however, by dismissing Madame Dalmas at once and forever. As
soon as you can spare Harris, I will send her to change a check at
Coutts', and then, for expedition and security, she shall take on the
brougham and make a round to these tradespeople. Meanwhile, I will drive
you in the phaeton to look at the bracelet."

"Oh, no-no, dear Walter, not the bracelet."

"Yes--yes--I say yes. Though not a quarrel, this is a sorrow which has
come between us, and there must be a peace-offering. Besides I would not
have you think that you had reached the limits o