“It is through no fault of mine, mother.  He says so himself.”

“Is it from any fault of his?  Has he done anything to displease you?”

“No,” she answered, with sudden warmth, “he has not—­indeed, he could not, I love him so.”

“Then, if you have not displeased each other, and really love each other, why are you parted in this strange fashion?  It seems to me, Madaline, that you are his wife only in name.”

“You are right, mother—­and I shall never be any more; but do not ask me why—­I can never tell you.  The secret must live and die with me.”

“Then I shall never know it, Madaline?”

“Never, mother,” she answered.

“But do you know, my darling, that it is wearing your life away?”

“Yes, I know it, but I cannot alter matters.  And, mother,” she continued, “if we are to be good friends and live together, you must never mention this to me again.”

“I will remember,” said Margaret, kissing the thin white hands, but to herself she said matters should not so continue.  Were Lord Arleigh twenty times a lord, he should not break his wife’s heart in that cold, cruel fashion.

A sudden resolve came to Mrs. Dornham—­she would go to Beechgrove and see him herself.  It he were angry and sent her away from Winiston House, it would not matter—­she would have told him the truth.  And the truth that she had to tell him was that the separation was slowly but surely killing his wife.

Chapter XXXVIII.

Margaret Dornham knew no peace until she had carried out her intention.  It was but right, she said to herself, that Lord Arleigh should know that his fair young wife was dying.

“What right had he to marry her?” she asked herself indignantly, “if he meant to break her heart?”

What could he have left her for?  It could not have been because of her poverty or her father’s crime—­he knew of both beforehand.  What was it?  In vain did she recall all that Madaline had ever said about her husband—­she could see no light in the darkness, find no solution to the mystery; therefore the only course open to her was to go to Lord Arleigh, and to tell him that his wife was dying.

“There may possibly have been some slight misunderstanding between them which one little interview might remove,” she thought.

One day she invented some excuse for her absence from Winiston House, and started on her expedition, strong with the love that makes the weakest heart brave.  She drove the greater part of the distance, and then dismissed the carriage, resolving to walk the remainder of the way—­she did not wish the servants to know whither she was going.  It was a delightful morning, warm, brilliant, sunny.  The hedge-rows were full of wild roses, there was a faint odor of newly-mown hay, the westerly wind was soft and sweet.