“No, Hugh, I forget nothing:  neither when I met him, nor how I married him, nor any of the events that have happened since.  My memory, unfortunately, is very good.”

“I did all I could for you, and should have been safe from your insolence.”

“You should have continued to stay away from me, and you would have been quite safe.  But our quarrelling in this way is foolish.  We can never be friends, you and I, but we need not be open enemies.  Your wife is my sister, and I say again that, if she likes to come to me, I shall be delighted to have her.”

“My wife,” said he, “will go to the house of no person who is insolent to me.”  Then he took his hat and left the room without further word or sign of greeting.  In spite of his calculations and caution as to money—­in spite of his well-considered arrangements and the comfortable provision for his future ease which he had proposed to himself; he was a man who had not his temper so much under control as to enable him to postpone his anger to his prudence.  That little scheme for getting rid of his wife was now at an end.  He would never permit her to go to her sister’s house after the manner in which Julia had just treated him.

When he was gone, Lady Ongar walked about her own room smiling, and at first was well pleased with herself.  She had received Archie’s overture with decision, but at the same time with courtesy, for Archie was weak and poor and powerless.  But she had treated Sir Hugh with scorn, and had been enabled to do so without the utterance of any actual reproach as to the wrongs which she herself had endured from him.  He had put himself in her power, and she had not thrown away the opportunity.  She had told him that she did not want his friendship, and would not be his friend; but she had done this without any loud abuse unbecoming to her either as a countess, a widow, or a lady.  For Hermione she was sorry.  Hermione now could hardly come to her.  But even as to that, she did not despair.  As things were going on, it would become almost necessary that her sister and Sir Hugh should be parted.  Both must wish it; and if this were arranged, then Hermione should come to her.

But from this she soon came to think again about Harry Clavering.  How was that matter to be decided, and what steps would it become her to take as to its decision?  Sir Hugh had proposed to her that she should sell her interest in Ongar Park, and she had promised that she would make known her decision on that matter through her lawyer.  As she had been saying this, she was well aware that she would never sell the property; but she had already resolved that she would at once give it back, without purchase-money, to the Ongar family, were it not kept that she might hand it over to Harry Clavering as a fitting residence for his lordship.  If he might be there, looking after his cattle, going about with the steward subservient at his heels, ministering justice to the Enoch Gubbys