wish. If you think
well of it, I will go off to Loughlinter to-morrow, and tell him that
you will never return to him. And if you are not safe from him here
at Saulsby, you shall go abroad with us. I am sure Violet would not
object. I will not be cruel to you."

But in truth neither of Lady Laura's councillors was able to give
her advice that could serve her. She felt that she could not leave
her husband without other cause than now existed, although she felt,
also, that to go back to him was to go back to utter wretchedness.
And when she saw Violet and her brother together there came to her
dreams of what might have been her own happiness had she kept herself
free from those terrible bonds in which she was now held a prisoner.
She could not get out of her heart the remembrance of that young man
who would have been her lover, if she would have let him,--of whose
love for herself she had been aware before she had handed herself
over as a bale of goods to her unloved, unloving husband. She had
married Mr. Kennedy because she was afraid that otherwise she might
find herself forced to own that she loved that other man who was
then a nobody;--almost nobody. It was not Mr. Kennedy's money that
had bought her. This woman in regard to money had shown herself
to be as generous as the sun. But in marrying Mr. Kennedy she had
maintained herself in her high position, among the first of her own
people,--among the first socially and among the first politically.
But had she married Phineas,--had she become Lady Laura Finn,--there
would have been a great descent. She could not have entertained the
leading men of her party. She would not have been on a level with the
wives and daughters of Cabinet Ministers. She might, indeed, have
remained unmarried! But she knew that had she done so,--had she so
resolved,--that which she called her fancy would have been too strong
for her. She would not have remained unmarried. At that time it was
her fate to be either Lady Laura Kennedy or Lady Laura Finn. And she
had chosen to be Lady Laura Kennedy. To neither Violet Effingham nor
to her brother could she tell one half of the sorrow which afflicted
her.

"I shall go back to Loughlinter," she said to her brother.

"Do not, unless you wish it," he answered.

"I do not wish it. But I shall do it. Mr. Kennedy is in London now,
and has been there since Parliament met, but he will be in Scotland
again in March, and I will go and meet him there. I to