“Not personally; by reputation only.  A country attorney, Richards of Braintree, for whom I transact London business sent me the draught of a deed of separation—­to which the unfortunate lady, rather than continue to live with her husband, had consented—­for counsel’s opinion.  I had an interview with Mr. Harlowe himself upon the business; but I see he affects to have forgotten me.  I do not know much of the merits of the case, but according to Richards—­no great shakes of a fellow, between ourselves—­the former Mrs. Harlowe was a martyr to her husband’s calculated virulence and legal—­at least not illegal, a great distinction, in my opinion, though not so set down in the books—­despotism.  He espoused her for her wealth:  that secured, he was desirous of ridding himself of the incumbrance to it.  A common case!—­and now, if you please, to business.”

I excused myself, as did my wife, from being present at the wedding; but everything, I afterwards heard, passed off with great eclat.  The bridegroom was all fervor and obsequiousness; the bride all bashfulness and beauty.  The “happy pair,” I saw by the afternoon newspapers, were to pass the honeymoon at Mr. Harlowe’s seat, Fairdown Park.  The evening of the marriage-day was anything, I remember, but a pleasant one to me.  I reached home by no means hilariously disposed, where I was greeted, by way of revival, with the intelligence that my wife, after listening with great energy to Lady Maldon’s description of the wedding festivities for two tremendous hours, had at last been relieved by copious hysteria, and that Mary and Kate were in a fair way—­if the exploit could be accomplished by perseverance—­of crying themselves to sleep.  These were our bridal compliments; much more flattering, I imagine, if not quite so honey-accented, as the courtly phrases with which the votaries and the victims of Hymen are alike usually greeted.

Time, business, worldly hopes and cares, the triumphs and defeats of an exciting profession, gradually weakened the impression made upon me by the gentle virtues of Edith Willoughby; and when, about fifteen months after the wedding, my wife informed me that she had been accosted by Mrs. Harlowe at a shop in Bond Street, my first feeling was one of surprise, not untinged with resentment, for what I deemed her ungrateful neglect.

“She recognized you then?” I remarked.

“Recognized me!  What do you mean?”

“I thought perhaps she might have forgotten your features, as she evidently has our address.”

“If you had seen,” replied my wife, “how pale, how cold, how utterly desolate she looked, you would think less hardly of her.  As soon as she observed me, a slight scream escaped her; and then she glanced eagerly and tremblingly around like a startled fawn.  Her husband had passed out of the shop to give, I think, some direction to the coachman.  She tottered towards me, and clasping me in her arms,