ty well. If I had a wife of my own I should be sure to fall in love
with somebody else's."

"Lady George for instance."

"No;--not Lady George. It would not be with somebody whom I had learned
to think the very best woman in all the world. I am very bad, but I'm
just not bad enough to make love to her. Or rather I am very foolish,
but just not foolish enough to think that I could win her."

"I suppose she's just the same as others, Jack."

"She's not just the same to me. But I'd rather not talk about her,
Guss. I'm going to Killancodlem in a day or two, and I shall leave this
to-morrow!"

"To-morrow!"

"Well; yes; to-morrow. I must be a day or two in town, and there is not
much doing here. I'm tired of the old Marquis who is the most
illnatured brute I ever came across in my life, and there's no more fun
to be made of the Baroness. I'm not sure but that she has the best of
the fun. I didn't think there was an old woman in the world could get a
five pound note out of me; but she had."

"How could you be so foolish?"

"How indeed! You'll go back to London?"

"I suppose so;--unless I drown myself."

"Don't do that, Guss?"

"I often think it will be best. You don't know what my life is,--how
wretched. And you made it so."

"Is that fair, Guss?"

"Quite fair! Quite true! You have made it miserable. You know you have.
Of course you know it."

"Can I help it now?"

"Yes you can. I can be patient if you will say that it shall be some
day. I could put up with anything if you would let me hope. When you
have got that twenty thousand pounds----?"

"But I shall never have it."

"If you do,--will you marry me then? Will you promise me that you will
never marry anybody else?"

"I never shall."

"But will you promise me? If you will not say so much as that to me you
must be false indeed. When you have the twenty thousand pounds will you
marry me?"

"Oh, certainly."

"And you can laugh about such a matter when I am pouring out my very
soul to you? You can make a joke of it when it is all my life to me!
Jack, if you will say that it shall happen some day,--some day,--I will
be happy. If you won't,--I can only die. It may be play to you, but
it's death to me." He looked at her, and saw that she was quite in
earnest. She was not weeping, but there was a drawn, heavy look about
her face which, in truth, touched his heart. Whatever might be his
faults he was not a cruel man. He had defended himself without any