“And now,” the voice went on, “after but a few years of marriage all her beauty lost so that none would know her!  Four poor, weak girl infants she hath given birth to, and her husband, Sir Jeoffry, in a fury at the coming of each, raging that it is not an heir.  Before the first came he had begun to slight her, and when ’twas born a girl he well-nigh broke her heart.  He is a great, bold, handsome man, and she, poor little lady, hopeless in her worship of him.  And the next year there was another girl, and each year since—­and Sir Jeoffry spends his time in riot and drinking and ill-living—­and she fades away in her wing of the house, scarce ever seen.”

“Poor, uncared-for thing, ’twould be happier if God took her, and her children, too,” said Mistress Halsell.

“Three have been taken,” replied her companion, in a low voice.  “Neither she nor they have strength.  And ah! to see her in these days—­her pretty face grown thin and haggard, the blue of her eyes drenched out with weeping.  ’Tis told he once said to her, ’When a woman grows thin and yellow, her husband will go in search of better looks, and none has right to blame him.’  ’Twas on a day when she had dressed herself in her best to please him, but a few weeks after her third infant came into the world.  And so weak was she, poor lady, and so hurt in spirit, that she gave a little sob and swooned.”

The young Marquess read his book no more.  He drew down his handsome childish brow and stared straight before him through the window.  He was a boy with a fiery spirit, despite his general amiability of demeanour, and, had he lived among tormentors and tyrants and been ill-treated, would have had an ungovernable temper.  The thing he had heard filled him with a kind of rage against this big handsome man who treated his lady cruelly and hated her infants.  ’Twas all brutal and wicked and unfair, as if one should heartlessly beat a little dog that loved one.  The picture brought before him was hideous and made him grow hot.  His spirit had never been tamed, he had the blood of fighting men in his veins, and he had read innumerable stories of chivalry.  He wished he were big enough to go forth in search of such men as this Sir Jeoffry, and strike them to the earth with his sword.

On such evenings as their Graces did not entertain, he was taken by his governour to spend an hour with his father and mother in the withdrawing-room, where they sat, and on this evening, when he went to them, each of them observed that he spoke less than usual and seemed in a new mood.  He had always been filled with a passionate adoration of his mother, and was much given to following her with his eyes; but this night his gaze was fixed upon her in such earnest scrutiny that at last her Grace asked him laughingly what he saw in her looks more than ordinary.  He had kept very close to her, and had held her hand, and kissed it more than once since he had been in the room.  He lifted it to his lips again now, and pressed an impassioned kiss upon its fairness.