ge.

"What's that you say?" Poor Lord George had simply been awkward, having
intended no severity. "Have you given him no cause?"

"I meant that I should be sorry to trouble him."

"Ah--h! That is a different thing. If husbands would only be
complaisant, how much nicer it would be for everybody." Then there was
a pause. "You do love me, George?" There was a beautiful moon that was
bright through the green foliage, and there was a smell of sweet
exotics, and the garden of the Square was mysteriously pretty as it lay
below them in the moonlight. He stood silent, making no immediate
answer to this appeal. He was in truth plucking up his courage for a
great effort. "Say that you love me. After all that is passed you must
love me." Still he was silent. "George, will you not speak?"

"Yes; I will speak."

"Well, sir!"

"I do not love you."

"What! But you are laughing at me. You have some scheme or some plot
going on."

"I have nothing going on. It is better to say it. I love my wife."

"Psha! love her;--yes, as you would a doll or any pretty plaything. I
loved her too till she took it into her stupid head to quarrel with me.
I don't grudge her such love as that. She is a child."

It occurred to Lord George at the moment that his wife had certainly
more than an infantine will of her own. "You don't know her," he said.

"And now, after all, you tell me to my face that you do not love me!
Why have you sworn so often that you did?" He hadn't sworn it often. He
had never sworn it at all since she had rejected him. He had been
induced to admit a passion in the most meagre terms. "Do you own
yourself to be false?" she asked.

"I am true to my wife."

"Your wife! One would think you were the curate of the parish. And is
that to be all?"

"Yes, Mrs. Houghton; that had better be all."

"Then why did you come here? Why are you here now?" She had not
expected such courage from him, and almost thought more of him now than
she had ever thought before. "How dare you come to this house at all?"

"Perhaps I should not have come."

"And I am nothing to you?" she asked in her most plaintive accents.
"After all those scenes at Manor Cross you can think of me with
indifference?" There had been no scenes, and as she spoke he shook his
head, intending to disclaim them. "Then go!" How was he to go? Was he
to wake Mr. Houghton? Was he to disturb that other loving couple? Was
he to say no word of farewell to her? "Oh, stay," she