r man; and the suspicions
which had taken root in him at Aberalva grew into ugly shape and
strength. However he was silent, and contented himself with coldness and
all but rudeness.

There were excuses for him. In the first place, it would have been an
ugly thing to take notice of any man's attentions to a wife; it could
not be done but upon the strongest grounds, and done in a way which
would make a complete rupture necessary, so breaking up the party in a
sufficiently unpleasant way. Besides, to move in the matter at all would
be to implicate Lucia; for, of whatsoever kind Campbell's attentions
were, she evidently liked them; and a quarrel with her on that score was
more than Elsley dared face. He was not a man of strong moral courage;
he hated a scene of any kind; and he was afraid of being worsted in any
really serious quarrel, not merely by Campbell, but by Lucia. It may
seem strange that he should be afraid of her, though not so that he
should be afraid of Campbell. But the truth is, that the man who bullies
his wife very often does so--as Elsley had done more than once--simply
to prove to himself his own strength, and hide his fear of her. He knew
well that woman's tongue, when once the "fair beast" is brought to bay,
is a weapon far too trenchant to be faced by any shield but that of a
very clear conscience toward her; which was more than Elsley had.

Beside--and it is an honour to Elsley Vavasour, amid all his weakness,
that he had justice and chivalry enough left to know what nine men out
of ten ignore--behind all, let the worst come to the worst, lay one
just and terrible rejoinder, which he, though he had been no worse than
the average of men, could only answer by silent shame,--

"At least, sir, I was pure when I came to you! You best know whether you
were so likewise."

And yet even that, so all-forgiving is woman, might, have been faced by
some means: but the miserable complication about the false name still
remained. Elsley believed that he was in his wife's power; that she
could, if she chose, turn upon him, and proclaim him to the world as a
scoundrel and an impostor. And, as it is of the nature of man to hate
those whom he fears, Elsley began to have dark and ugly feelings toward
Lucia. Instead of throwing them away, as a strong man would have done,
he pampered them almost without meaning to do so. For he let them run
riot through his too vivid imagination, in the form of possible
speeches, possib