They sat at breakfast.  It was early spring, and though the sunshine streamed through the windows, and from one of them there crept the odors of the conservatory, a bright fire gleamed and crackled in the grate; and shed a charm of cheerfulness through the room.  Mr. Ferrars had a newspaper in his hand, but not yet had he perused a line, for his son and heir, a brave boy of three years old, a very model of patrician beauty, was climbing his large chair, playing antics of many sorts, and even affecting to pull his father’s still rich and curling hair, so little awe had the young Walter of the head of the house—­while Mr. Farrars’ parental glee was like a deep bass to the child’s crowing laugh.  Lady Lucy smiled too, but she shook her head, and said more than once, “Naughty papa is spoiling Watty.”  It was a pretty scene; the room was redolent of elegance, and the young mother, in her exquisitely simple but tasteful morning dress, was one of its chief ornaments.  Who would think that beneath all this sweetness of life there was still a serpent!

A post was just in, and a servant entered with several letters; among those delivered to Lady Lucy were two or three large unsightly, ill-shaped epistles, that seemed strange company for the others.  An observing stranger might have noticed that Lady Lucy’s cheek paled, and then flushed; that she crushed up her letters together, without immediately opening them, and that presently she slid the ugly ones into the pocket of her satin apron.  Mr. Ferrars read his almost with a glance—­for they were masculine letters, laconic, and to the point, conveying necessary information, in three lines and a half—­and he smiled, as after a while he observed his wife apparently intent on a truly feminine epistle—­four sides of delicate paper closely crossed—­and exclaimed gaily: 

“My dear Lucy, there’s an hour’s reading for you, at least; so I shall ring and send Watty to the nursery, and settle steadily to the Times.”

But though Lady Lucy really perused the letter, her mind refused to retain the pleasant chit-chat gossip it contained.  Her thoughst[sic] were far away, and had she narrowly examined her motives she would have known that she bent over the friendly sheet chiefly as an excuse for silence, and to conceal her passing emotions.  Meanwhile the newspaper crackled in her husband’s hand as he moved its broad leaves.

Presently Mr. Ferrars started with an exclamation of grief and astonishment that completely roused his absent wife.

“My dear Walter, what has happened?” she asked, with great anxiety.

“A man a bankrupt, whom I thought as safe as the Bank of England.  Though it is true people talked about him months ago—­spoke suspiciously of his personal extravagance, and, above all, said that his wife was ruining him.”

“His wife!”