“Yet you took yourself off in dudgeon, as though you were, leaving me without a groomsman.”

“I would not remain to witness a marriage that—­that you ought not to have entered upon.”

“Well, it’s done and over, and need not be brought up again,” returned Hartledon, a shade of annoyance in his tones.

“Certainly not.  I have no wish or right to bring it up.  How is Lady Hartledon?”

“She is very well.  And now what has kept you away, Carr?  We have been in London nearly a fortnight, and you’ve never been near me.  I thought you were going to quarrel.”

“I did not know you had returned.”

“Not know it!  Why all the newspapers had it in amongst the ’fashionable intelligence.’”

“I have more to do with my time than to look at the fashionable portion of the papers.  Not being fashionable myself, it doesn’t interest me.”

“Yes, it’s about a fortnight since we came back to this hateful place,” returned Hartledon, his light tone subsiding into seriousness.  “I am out of conceit with England just now; and would far rather have gone to the Antipodes.”

“Then why did you come back to it?” inquired the barrister, in surprise.

“My wife gave me no choice.  She possesses a will of her own.  It is the ordinary thing, perhaps, for wives to do so.”

“Some do, and some don’t,” observed Thomas Carr, who never flattered at the expense of truth.  “Are you going down to Hartledon?”

“Hartledon!” with a perceptible shiver.  “In the mind I am in, I shall never visit Hartledon again; there are some in its vicinity I would rather not insult by my presence.  Why do you bring up disagreeable subjects?”

“You will have to get over that feeling,” observed Mr. Carr, disregarding the hint, and taking out his probing-knife.  “And the sooner it is got over the better for all parties.  You cannot become an exile from your own place.  Are they at Calne now?”

“Yes.  They were in Paris just before we left it, and there was an encounter at Versailles.  I wished myself dead; I declare I did.  A day or two after we came to England they crossed over, and went straight down to Calne.  There—­don’t say any more.”

“The longer you keep away from Hartledon the greater effort it will cost you to go down to it; and—­”

“I won’t go to Hartledon,” he interrupted, in a sort of fury; “neither perhaps would you, in my place.”

“Sir,” cried Mr. Carr’s clerk, bustling in and addressing his master, “you are waited for at the chambers of Serjeant Gale.  The consultation is on.”

Lord Hartledon rose.

“I will not detain you, Carr; business must be attended to.  Will you come and dine with us this evening?  Only me and my wife.  Here’s where we are staying—­Piccadilly.  My own house is let, you know.”

“I have no engagement, and will come with pleasure,” said Mr. Carr, taking the card.  “What hour?”