I begged her to continue.  She perplexed—­I am not sure that she did not even alarm me.

“Very well,” she proceeded.  “You may be surprised to hear it—­but I don’t mean to allow things to go on in this way.  My contemptible son-in-law shall return to his wife.”

This startled me, and I suppose I showed it.

“Wait a little,” said Mrs. Eyrecourt.  “There is nothing to be alarmed about.  Romayne is a weak fool; and Father Benwell’s greedy hands are (of course) in both his pockets.  But he has, unless I am entirely mistaken, some small sense of shame, and some little human feeling still left.  After the manner in which he has behaved, these are the merest possibilities, you will say.  Very likely.  I have boldly appealed to those possibilities nevertheless.  He has already gone away to Rome; and I need hardly add—­Father Benwell would take good care of that—­he has left us no address.  It doesn’t in the least matter.  One of the advantages of being so much in society as I am is that I have nice acquaintances everywhere, always ready to oblige me, provided I don’t borrow money of them.  I have written to Romayne, under cover to one of my friends living in Rome.  Wherever he may be, there my letter will find him.”

So far, I listened quietly enough, naturally supposing that Mrs. Eyrecourt trusted to her own arguments and persuasions.  I confess it even to myself, with shame.  It was a relief to me to feel that the chances (with such a fanatic as Romayne) were a hundred to one against her.

This unworthy way of thinking was instantly checked by Mrs. Eyrecourt’s next words.

“Don’t suppose that I am foolish enough to attempt to reason with him,” she went on.  “My letter begins and ends on the first page.  His wife has a claim on him, which no newly-married man can resist.  Let me do him justice.  He knew nothing of it before he went away.  My letter—­my daughter has no suspicion that I have written it—­tells him plainly what the claim is.”

She paused.  Her eyes softened, her voice sank low—­she became quite unlike the Mrs. Eyrecourt whom I knew.

“In a few months more, Winterfield,” she said, “my poor Stella will be a mother.  My letter calls Romayne back to his wife—­and his child."

Mrs. Eyrecourt paused, evidently expecting me to offer an opinion of some sort.  For the moment I was really unable to speak.  Stella’s mother never had a very high opinion of my abilities.  She now appeared to consider me the stupidest person in the circle of her acquaintance.

“Are you a little deaf, Winterfield?” she asked.

“Not that I know of.”

“Do you understand me?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then why can’t you say something?  I want a man’s opinion of our prospects.  Good gracious, how you fidget!  Put yourself in Romayne’s place, and tell me this.  If you had left Stella—­”

“I should never have left her, Mrs. Eyrecourt.”