--" I think she would have told a falsehood, if John's eyes had not
been so keenly fixed upon her. "To--a friend."

"Friends are at all times dangerous to a lady who--"

"Hates her husband--ha! ha! Especially male friends?"

"Especially male friends."

Here Guy, who had lingered out of his little bed most
unlawfully--hovering about, ready to do any chivalrous duty to his idol
of the day--came up to bid her good-night, and held up his rosy mouth,
eagerly.

"I--kiss a little child! I!"--and from her violent laughter she burst
into a passion of tears.

The mother signed me to carry Guy away; she and John took Lady Caroline
into the parlour, and shut the door.

Of course I did not then learn what passed--but I did afterwards.

Lady Caroline's tears were evanescent, like all her emotions. Soon she
became composed--asked again for writing materials--then countermanded
the request.

"No, I will wait till to-morrow. Ursula, you will take me in for the
night?"

Mrs. Halifax looked appealingly to her husband, but he gave no assent.

"Lady Caroline, you should willingly stay, were it not, as you must
know, so fatal a step. In your position, you should be most careful to
leave the world and your husband no single handle against you."

"Mr. Halifax, what right have you--"

"None, save that of an honest man, who sees a woman cruelly wronged,
and desperate with her wrong; who would thankfully save her if he
could."

"Save me? From what--or whom?"

"From Mr. Gerard Vermilye, who is now waiting down the road, and whom,
if Lady Caroline Brithwood once flies to, or even sees, at this crisis,
she loses her place among honourable English matrons for ever."

John said this, with no air of virtuous anger or contempt, but as the
simple statement of a fact. The convicted woman dropped her face
between her hands.

Ursula, greatly shocked, was some time before she spoke.

"Is it true, Caroline?"

"What is true?"

"That which my husband has heard of you?"

"Yes," she cried, springing up, and dashing back her beautiful
hair--beautiful still, though she must have been five or six and thirty
at least--"Yes, it is true--it shall be true. I will break my bonds
and live the life I was made for. I would have done it long ago, but
for--no matter. Why, Ursula, he adores me; young and handsome as he
is, he adores me. He will give me my youth back again, ay, he will."

And she sang out a French chanson, something abo