said with a tone of great softness, "your wife is a good
woman. God bless her! God bless her for all she has said and done--would
have done, if that villain had let her! Do you know the poor thing
hasn't a single friend in the world, not one, one--except me, and that
girl they are selling to Farintosh, and who does not count for much. He
has driven away all her friends from her: one and all turn upon her. Her
relations, of course; when did they ever fail to hit a poor fellow or
a poor girl when she was down? The poor angel! The mother who sold her
comes and preaches at her; Kew's wife turns up her little cursed nose
and scorns her; Rooster, forsooth, must ride high the horse, now he
is married and lives at Chanticlere, and give her warning to avoid my
company or his! Do you know the only friend she ever had was that old
woman with the stick--old Kew; the old witch whom they buried four
months ago after nobbling her money for the beauty of the family? She
used to protect her--that old woman; heaven bless her for it, wherever
she is now, the old hag--a good word won't do her any harm. Ha! ha!" His
laughter was cruel to hear.

"Why did I come down?" he continued in reply to our sad queries. "Why
did I come down, do you ask? Because she was wretched, and sent for me.
Because if I was at the end of the world, and she was to say, 'Jack,
come!' I'd come."

"And if she bade you go?" asked his friends.

"I would go; and I have gone. If she told me to jump into the sea, do
you think I would not do it? But I go; and when she is alone with him,
do you know what he does? He strikes her. Strikes that poor little
thing! He has owned to it. She fled from him and sheltered with the old
woman who's dead. He may be doing it now. Why did I ever shake hands
with him? that's humiliation sufficient, isn't it? But she wished it;
and I'd black his boots, curse him, if she told me. And because he
wanted to keep my money in his confounded bank; and because he knew he
might rely upon my honour and hers, poor dear child, he chooses to shake
hands with me--me, whom he hates worse than a thousand devils--and quite
right too. Why isn't there a place where we can go and meet, like man
to man, and have it over! If I had a ball through my brains I shouldn't
mind, I tell you. I've a mind to do it for myself, Pendennis. You don't
understand me, Viscount."

"Il est vrai," said Florac, with a shrug, "I comprehend neither the
suicide nor the chaise-de-pos