ed."

"Good Lord, they were married!"

"What else?" said Dick, turning scarlet. "He respected her as every man
must respect the woman he--the woman he--thinks he loves."

"I am glad you have the sense to see that he only thought he----Well,
and what was the end of it, Mr. Dick?"

"The end of it was--what you have foreseen, sir," said Dick, bowing his
head. "The fellow is my friend, that's to say Tom did all he could. I
don't think he was without patience with her. After, when she left him
for good, or rather for bad, bad as could be, he did everything he could
to help her. He offered, not to take her back, that was not possible,
but to provide for her and--and all that. She had all the savage virtues
as well as faults. She was honourable in her way. She would take nothing
from him. She even made out what she called a paper, poor thing, to set
him free. She would not take her freedom herself and leave him bound,
she said. And then she disappeared."

"Leaving him the paper?"

"Yes," said Dick, with a faint smile, "leaving him the paper. He found
it on his table. That is six years ago. He has never seen her since. He
came home soon, feeling--I can't tell you how he felt."

"As if life were not much worth living, according to the slang of the
day."

"Well, sir," said Dick, "he's a droll sort of a fellow. He--seemed to
get over it somehow. It took a vast deal out of him, but yet he got over
it in a kind of a way. He came back among his own people; and what have
they been doing since ever he came back but imploring him to marry! It
would settle him they all said, if he could get some nice girl: and they
have done nothing but throw nice girls in his way--some of the nicest
girls in England, I believe,--one----"

"Good Lord!" said the old man, "you don't mean to say this unlucky young
fellow has fallen in love again?"

Dick shook his head with a rueful air, in which it was impossible not to
see a touch of the comic, notwithstanding his despair. "This is precisely
why he wants your opinion, that is, some one's opinion--for of course he
has not the honour of knowing you."

"Hasn't he? Ah! I began to think I remembered something about your
Tom--or was it Dick--Wyld? Tom Wyld--I think I have heard the name."

"If you should meet him in society," cried Dick, growing very red,
"don't for heaven's sake make any allusion to this. I ought not to have
mentioned his name."

"Well, get on with the story," said the old man.