utes ago,--he thought of
it now as being but a few minutes since,--telling her with almost his
last word that she was specially bound, more bound than other women, to
mind her own conduct,--and here she was walking in Kensington Gardens
with a man whom all the world called Jack De Baron? As he approached
them his brow became clouded, and she could see that it was so. She
could not but fear that her companion would see it also. Lord George
was thinking how to address them, and had already determined on tucking
his wife under his own arm and carrying her off, before he saw that a
very little way behind them the Dean was walking with--Adelaide
Houghton herself. Though he had been more than an hour wandering about
the park he could not understand that the lady whom he had left in her
own house so recently, in apparently so great a state of agitation,
should be there also, in her best bonnet and quite calm. He had no
words immediately at command, but she was as voluble as ever. "Doesn't
this seem odd?" she said. "Why, it is not ten minutes since you left me
in Berkeley Square. I wonder what made you come here."

"What made you come?"

"Jack brought me here. If it were not for Jack I should never walk or
ride or do anything, except sit in a stupid carriage. And just at the
gate of the gardens we met the Dean and Lady George."

This was very simple and straightforward. There could be no doubt of
the truth of it all. Lady George had come out with her father and
nothing could be more as it ought to be. As to "Jack" and the lady he
did not, at any rate as yet, feel himself justified in being angry at
that arrangement. But nevertheless he was disturbed. His wife had been
laughing when he first saw her, and Jack had been talking, and they had
seemed to be very happy together. The Dean no doubt was there; but
still the fact remained that Jack had been laughing and talking with
his wife. He almost doubted whether his wife ought under any
circumstances to laugh in Kensington Gardens. And then the Dean was so
indiscreet! He, Lord George, could not of course forbid his wife to
walk with her father;--but the Dean had no idea that any real looking
after was necessary for anybody. He at once gave his arm to his wife,
but in two minutes she had dropped it. They were on the steps of the
Albert Memorial, and it was perhaps natural that she should do so. But
he hovered close to her as they were looking at the figures, and was
uneasy. "I thi