Lady Bellamy smiled a little.

“You argue well; but there is one thing that you overlook, though I am sorry to have to pain you by saying it; young Mr. Heigham is no better than he should be.  I have made inquiries about him, and think that I ought to tell you that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that his life, young as he is, has not been so creditable as it might have been.  He has been the hero of one or two little affairs.  I can tell you about them if you like.”

“Lady Bellamy, your stories are either true or untrue.  If true, I should take no notice of them, because they must have happened before he loved me; if untrue, they would be a mere waste of breath, so I think that we may dispense with the stories—­they would influence me no more than the hum of next summer’s gnats.”

Lady Bellamy smiled again.

“You are a curious woman,” she said; “but, supposing that there were to be a repetition of these little stories after he loved you, what would you say then?”

Angela looked troubled, and thought awhile.

“He could never go far from me,” she answered.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I hold the strings of his heart in my hands, and I have only to lift them to draw him back to me—­so.  No other woman, no living force, can keep him from me, if I choose to bid him come.”

“Supposing that to be so, how about the self-respect you spoke of just now?  Could you bear to take your lover back from the hands of another woman?”

“That would entirely depend upon the circumstances, and upon what was just to the other woman.”

“You would not then throw him up without question?”

“Lady Bellamy, I may be very ignorant and simple, but I am neither mad nor a fool.  What do you suppose that my life would be worth to me if I threw Arthur up?  If I remained single it would be an aching void, as it is now, and if I married any other man whilst he still lived, it would become a daily and shameful humiliation such as I had rather die than endure.”

Lady Bellamy glanced up from under her heavy-lidded eyes; a thought had evidently struck her, but she did not express it.

“Then I am to tell your cousin George that you will have absolutely nothing to do with him?”

“Yes, and beg him to cease persecuting me; it is quite useless; if there were no Arthur and no other man in the world, I would not marry him.  I detest him—­I cannot tell you how I detest him.”

“It is amusing to hear you talk so, and to think that you will certainly be Mrs. George Caresfoot within nine months.”

“Never,” answered Angela, passionately stamping her foot upon the floor.  “What makes you say such horrible things?”

“I reflect,” answered Lady Bellamy, with an ominous smile, “that George Caresfoot has made up his mind to marry you, and that I have made up mine to help him to do so, and that your will, strong as it certainly is, is, as compared with our united wills, what a straw is to a gale.  The straw cannot travel against the wind, it must go with it, and you must marry George Caresfoot.  You will as certainly come to the altar-rails with him as you will to your death-bed.  It is written in your face.  Good-bye.”