ous," said Mrs. Houghton. 'She,' was intended
to signify Mary.

"No. To do Mary justice, it is not her fault. I don't think she cares
for it."

"I dare say she would like to be a Marchioness as well as any one else.
I know I should."

"You might have been," he said, looking tenderly into her face.

"I wonder how I should have borne all this. You say that she is
indifferent. I should have been so anxious on your behalf,--to see you
installed in your rights!"

"I have no rights. There is my brother."

"Yes; but as the heir. She has none of the feeling about you that I
have, George." Then she put out her hand to him, which he took and
held. "I begin to think that I was wrong. I begin to know that I was
wrong. We could have lived at any rate."

"It is too late," he said, still holding her hand.

"Yes,--it is too late. I wonder whether you will ever understand the
sort of struggle which I had to go through, and the feeling of duty
which overcame me at last. Where should we have lived?"

"At Cross Hall, I suppose."

"And if there had been children, how should we have brought them up?"
She did not blush as she asked the question, but he did. "And yet I
wish that I had been braver. I think I should have suited you better
than she."

"She is as good as gold," he said, moved by a certain loyalty which,
though it was not sufficient absolutely to protect her from wrong, was
too strong to endure to hear her reproached.

"Do not tell me of her goodness," said Mrs. Houghton, jumping up from
her seat. "I do not want to hear of her goodness. Tell me of my
goodness. Does she love you as I do? Does she make you the hero of her
thoughts? She has no idea of any hero. She would think more of Jack De
Baron whirling round the room with her than of your position in the
world, or of his, or even of her own." He winced visibly when he heard
Jack De Baron's name. "You need not be afraid," she continued, "for
though she is, as you say, as good as gold, she knows nothing about
love. She took you when you came because it suited the ambition of the
Dean,--as she would have taken anything else that he provided for her."

"I believe she loves me," he said, having in his heart of hearts, at
the moment, much more solicitude in regard to his absent wife than to
the woman who was close to his feet and was flattering him to the top
of his bent.

"And her love, such as it is, is sufficient for you?"

"She is my wife."

"Yes; because I al