ertainly."

"But in the ordinary sense? is it not so? When you talk of going to
Baden-Baden for an unlimited number of months, have you any idea of
coming back again?"

"Back to London, you mean?"

"Back to me,--to my house,--to your duties as a wife! Why cannot you
say at once what it is you want? You wish to be separated from me?"

"I am not happy here,--in this house."

"And who chose the house? Did I want to come here? But it is not
that. If you are not happy here, what could you have in any other
house to make you happy?"

"If you were left alone in this room for seven or eight hours at a
time, without a soul to come to you, you would know what I mean. And
even after that, it is not much better. You never speak to me when
you are here."

"Is it my fault that nobody comes to you? The fact is, Alexandrina,
that you will not reconcile yourself to the manner of life which
is suitable to my income. You are wretched because you cannot have
yourself driven round the Park. I cannot find you a carriage,
and will not attempt to do so. You may go to Baden-Baden, if you
please;--that is, if your mother is willing to take you."

"Of course I must pay my own expenses," said Alexandrina. But to
this he made no answer on the moment. As soon as he had given his
permission he had risen from his seat and was going, and her last
words only caught him in the doorway. After all, would not this be
the cheapest arrangement that he could make? As he went through his
calculations he stood up, with his elbow on the mantel-piece, in his
dressing-room. He had scolded his wife because she had been unhappy
with him; but had he not been quite as unhappy with her? Would it
not be better that they should part in this quiet, half-unnoticed
way;--that they should part and never again come together? He was
lucky in this, that hitherto had come upon them no prospect of any
little Crosbie to mar the advantages of such an arrangement. If he
gave her four hundred a year, and allowed Gazebee two more towards
the paying off of encumbrances, he would still have six on which to
enjoy himself in London. Of course he could not live as he had lived
in those happy days before his marriage, nor, independently of the
cost, would such a mode of life be within his reach. But he might go
to his club for his dinners; he might smoke his cigar in luxury; he
would not be bound to that wooden home which, in spite of all his
resolutions, had become almost unendur