When your wife’s dying!  Accustomed to the strong expressions of the countess-dowager, he passed that over.  But, “going the same way that her father went;” he paused there, and tried to remember how her father did “go.”  All he could recollect now, indeed all he knew at the time, was, that Lord Kirton’s last illness was reported to have been a lingering one.

Such missives as these—­and the countess-dowager favoured him with more than one—­coupled with his own consciousness that he was not behaving to his wife as he ought, took him at length down to Hartledon.  That his presence at the place so soon after his marriage was little short of an insult to Dr. Ashton’s family, his sensitive feelings told him; but his duty to his wife was paramount, and he could not visit his sin upon her.

She was looking very ill; was low-spirited and hysterical; and when she caught sight of him she forgot her anger, and fell sobbing into his arms.  The countess-dowager had gone over to Garchester, and they had a few hours’ peace together.

“You are not looking well, Maude!”

“I know I am not.  Why do you stay away from me?”

“I could not help myself.  Business has kept me in London.”

“Have you been ill also?  You look thin and worn.”

“One does grow to look thin in heated London,” he replied evasively, as he walked to the window, and stood there.  “How is your brother, Maude—­Bob?”

“I don’t want to talk about Bob yet; I have to talk to you,” she said.  “Percival, why did you practise that deceit upon me?”

“What deceit?”

“It was a downright falsehood; and made me look awfully foolish when I came here and spoke of it as a fact.  That action.”

Lord Hartledon made no reply.  Here was one cause of his disinclination to meet his wife—­having to keep up the farce of Dr. Ashton’s action.  It seemed, however, that there would no longer be any farce to keep up.  Had it exploded?  He said nothing.  Maude gazing at him from the sofa on which she sat, her dark eyes looking larger than of yore, with hollow circles round them, waited for his answer.

“I do not know what you mean, Maude.”

“You do know.  You sent me down here with a tale that the Ashtons had entered an action against you for breach of promise—­damages, ten thousand pounds—­”

“Stay an instant, Maude.  I did not ‘send you down’ with the tale.  I particularly requested you to keep it private.”

“Well, mamma drew it out of me unawares.  She vexed me with her comments about your staying on in London, and it made me tell her why you had stayed.  She ascertained from Dr. Ashton that there was not a word of truth in the story.  Val, I betrayed it in your defence.”

He stood at the window in silence, his lips compressed.

“I looked so foolish in the eyes of Dr. Ashton!  The Sunday evening after I came down here I had a sort of half-fainting-fit, coming home from church.  He overtook me, and was very kind, and gave me his arm.  I said a word to him; I could not help it; mamma had worried me on so; and I learned that no such action had ever been thought of.  You had no right to subject me to the chance of such mortification.  Why did you do so?”