"Oh, as to that--what is the good of looking back, anyhow? I have and
I haven't--when I have been sick it has been awful lonesome. You
didn't grieve much, that's certain. And you got your title soon after
I went. It was lucky for you. Scot! I should have been Lady Chetwynd
if I had stopped with you, wouldn't I?"
"You would have been an honest woman."
"Ah!" She rose from her chair and looked curiously round the room. "I
remember those bronzes," she said; "they used to hang in your little
library in the old house. You are a good deal changed in the face;
your manner is just the same. You were always a good fellow, I will
say that. I know it better than I used to now I have had so--since I
have been--"
"Hush--the past is dead. I was not so patient and tender with you as
I should have been."
"You saw that--you had made a mistake, but you tried to hide how
sorry you were--I know you did that and I--well, I didn't marry you
to make you sorry. Do you know how we lived--he and I, when I left
you? He took me to Paris; and didn't we make the dollars spin, the
pair of us--rather; and then one fine morning we heard a beastly bank
had gone smash and he had lost pretty well all he had got."
"And you left him?"
A smile curled the corners of her mouth.
"No," she said, slowly; "I didn't. We took two little rooms over a
baker's shop in the High Street, Islington, and I stuck to him. I
used to go out in an evening and do the marketing with a hand basket,
to get it cheap. When we wanted a change we would take a bus to the
Park and look at the swells across the railings; and sometimes Saidie
gave us tickets for the theatres. Seems odd, don't it? but it's a
fact. I was livelier then than ever I've been in my life. While he
was fond of me--he showed me he was fond of me, you see."
"You were capable of love, then, after all?" he said bitterly.
"I don't know. I loved the freedom I think, anyway, and perhaps I
took him with it. I don't know! what does it matter? It was a release
for you and you are glad that it happened, eh? now that the shame of
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