and political honor.  I impressed on her the endless trouble and correspondence in which you had been involved—­and how meanwhile all your Home Office and cabinet work had to be carried on as usual, till it was decided whether your resignation should be withdrawn or no.  She listened with her head on her hands.  I think with regard to the book she is most genuinely ashamed and miserable.  And yet all the time there is this unreasonable, this monstrous feeling that you should not have left her!

“As to the scandalous references to private persons, she said that Madeleine Alcot had written to her about the country-house gossip.  That wretched being, Mr. Darrell, seems also to have written to her, trying to save himself through her.  And the only time I saw her laugh was when she spoke of having had a furious letter from Lady Grosville about the references to Grosville Park.  It was like the laugh of a mischievous, unhappy child.

“Then we came back to the main matter, and I implored her to let me take her home.  First I gave her your letter.  She read it, flushed up, and threw it away from her.  ‘He commands me!’ she said, fiercely.  ‘But I am no one’s chattel.’  I replied that you had only summoned her back to her duty and her home, and I asked her if she could really mean to repay your unfailing love by bringing anguish and dishonor upon you?  She sat dumb, and her stubbornness moved me so that I fear I lost my self-control and said more, much more—­in denunciation of her conduct—­than I had meant to do.  She heard me out, and then she got up and looked at me very bitterly and strangely.  I had never loved her, she said, and so I could not judge her.  Always from the beginning I had thought her unfit to be your wife, and she had known it, and my dislike of her, especially during the past year, had made her hard and reckless.  It had seemed no use trying.  I just wanted her dead, that you might marry a wife who would be a help and not a stumbling-block.  Well, I should have my wish, for she would soon be as good as dead, both to you and to me.

“All this hurt me deeply, and I could not restrain myself from crying.  I felt so helpless, and so doubtful whether I had not done more harm than good.  Then she softened a little, and asked me to let her go to bed—­she would think it all over and write to me in the morning....

     “So, my dear William, I can only pray and wait.  I am afraid there
     is but little hope, but God is merciful and strong.  He may yet save
     us all.

“But whatever happens, remember that you have nothing to reproach yourself with—­that you have done all that man could do.  I should telegraph to you in the morning to say, ‘Come, at all hazards,’ but that I feel sure all will be settled to-morrow one way or the other.  Either Kitty will start with me—­or she will go with Geoffrey Cliffe.  You could do nothing—­absolutely nothing.  God help us!  She seems to have some money, and she told me that she counted on retaining her jointure.”

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