ries made as well as
another person. I am not very fond of spies; but if other people use
spies, so can I too. That young woman is no better than she ought to
be. The Dean, I daresay, knows it; but he shall know that I know it.
And Master George shall know what I think about it. As there is to be
war, he shall know what it is to have war. She has got a lover of her
own already, and everybody who knows them is talking about it."

"Oh, Brotherton!"

"And she is going in for women's rights! George has made a nice thing
of it for himself. He has to live on the Dean's money, so that he
doesn't dare to call his soul his own. And yet he's fool enough to send
a lawyer to me to tell me that my wife is a ----, and my son a ----!"
He made use of very plain language, so that the poor old woman was
horrified and aghast and dumbfounded. And as he spoke the words there
was a rage in his eyes worse than anything she had seen before. He was
standing with his back to the fire, which was burning though the
weather was warm, and the tails of his coat were hanging over his arms
as he kept his hands in his pockets. He was generally quiescent in his
moods, and apt to express his anger in sarcasm rather than in outspoken
language; but now he was so much moved that he was unable not to give
vent to his feelings. As the Marchioness looked at him, shaking with
fear, there came into her distracted mind some vague idea of Cain and
Abel, though had she collected her thoughts she would have been far
from telling herself that her eldest son was Cain. "He thinks,"
continued the Marquis, "that because I have lived abroad I shan't mind
that sort of thing. I wonder how he'll feel when I tell him the truth
about his wife. I mean to do it;--and what the Dean will think when I
use a little plain language about his daughter. I mean to do that too.
I shan't mince matters. I suppose you have heard of Captain De Baron,
mother?"

Now the Marchioness unfortunately had heard of Captain De Baron. Lady
Susanna had brought the tidings down to Cross Hall. Had Lady Susanna
really believed that her sister-in-law was wickedly entertaining a
lover, there would have been some reticence in her mode of alluding to
so dreadful a subject. The secret would have been confided to Lady
Sarah in awful conclave, and some solemn warning would have been
conveyed to Lord George, with a prayer that he would lose no time in
withdrawing the unfortunate young woman from evil influences.