“You spoke plainly enough to her,” said Marian, glancing at the bed, “but in the long run it did her no good.”

“She would have laughed me to scorn if I had minced matters, for she never deceived herself.  Society, by the power of the purse, set her to nautch-girl’s work, and forbade her the higher work that was equally within her power.  Being enslaved and debauched in this fashion, how could she be happy except when she was not sober?  It was her own immediate interest to drink; it was her tradesman’s interest that she should drink; it was her servants’ interest that she should be pleased with them for getting drink for her.  She was clever, good-natured, more constant to her home and her man than you, a living fountain of innocent pleasure as a dancer, singer, and actress; and here she lies, after mischievously spending her talent in a series of entertainments too dull for hell and too debased for any better place, dead of a preventable disease, chiefly because most of the people she came in contact with had a direct pecuniary interest in depraving and poisoning her.  Aye, look at her! with the cross on her breast, the virgin mother in plaster looking on from where she kept her mirror when she was alive, and the people outside complacently saying ‘Serve her right!’”

Marian feared for a moment that he would demolish Eliza’s altar by hurling the chair through it.  “Dont, Ned,” she said, timidly, putting her hand on his arm.

“Dont what?” he said, taken aback.  She drew her hand away and retreated a step, coloring at the wifely liberty she had permitted herself to take.  “I beg your pardon.  I thought—­I thought you were going to take the cross away.  No,” she added quickly, seeing him about to speak, and anticipating a burst of scepticism:  “it is not that; but the servant is an Irish girl—­a Roman Catholic.  She put it there; and she meant well, and will be hurt if it is thrown aside.”

“And you think it better that she should remain in ignorance of what educated people think about her superstition than that she should suffer the mortification of learning that her opinions are not those of all the world!  However, I had no such intention.  Eliza’s idol is a respectable one as idols go.”

There was a pause.  Then Marian said:  “It must have been a great shock to you when you came and found what had happened.  I am very sorry.  But had we not better go downrs?  It seems so unfeeling, somehow, to talk without minding her.  I suppose you consider that foolish; but I think you are upset by it yourself.”

“You see a change in me, then?”

“You are not quite yourself, I think.”

“I tell you again that I am myself at last.  You do not seem to like the real man any better than the unreal:  I am afraid you will not have me on any terms.  Well, let us go downstairs, since you prefer it.”

“Oh, not unless you wish it too,” said Marian, a little bewildered.