“I could never understand why you married him.”

“Do not be cruel to me, Oswald.”

“Cruel!  I will stick by you in any way that you wish.  If you think well of it, I will go off to Loughlinter to-morrow, and tell him that you will never return to him.  And if you are not safe from him here at Saulsby, you shall go abroad with us.  I am sure Violet would not object.  I will not be cruel to you.”

But in truth neither of Lady Laura’s councillors was able to give her advice that could serve her.  She felt that she could not leave her husband without other cause than now existed, although she felt, also, that to go back to him was to go back to utter wretchedness.  And when she saw Violet and her brother together there came to her dreams of what might have been her own happiness had she kept herself free from those terrible bonds in which she was now held a prisoner.  She could not get out of her heart the remembrance of that young man who would have been her lover, if she would have let him,—­of whose love for herself she had been aware before she had handed herself over as a bale of goods to her unloved, unloving husband.  She had married Mr. Kennedy because she was afraid that otherwise she might find herself forced to own that she loved that other man who was then a nobody;—­almost nobody.  It was not Mr. Kennedy’s money that had bought her.  This woman in regard to money had shown herself to be as generous as the sun.  But in marrying Mr. Kennedy she had maintained herself in her high position, among the first of her own people,—­among the first socially and among the first politically.  But had she married Phineas,—­had she become Lady Laura Finn,—­there would have been a great descent.  She could not have entertained the leading men of her party.  She would not have been on a level with the wives and daughters of Cabinet Ministers.  She might, indeed, have remained unmarried!  But she knew that had she done so,—­had she so resolved,—­that which she called her fancy would have been too strong for her.  She would not have remained unmarried.  At that time it was her fate to be either Lady Laura Kennedy or Lady Laura Finn.  And she had chosen to be Lady Laura Kennedy.  To neither Violet Effingham nor to her brother could she tell one half of the sorrow which afflicted her.

“I shall go back to Loughlinter,” she said to her brother.

“Do not, unless you wish it,” he answered.

“I do not wish it.  But I shall do it.  Mr. Kennedy is in London now, and has been there since Parliament met, but he will be in Scotland again in March, and I will go and meet him there.  I told him that I would do so when I left.”

“But you will go up to London?”

“I suppose so.  I must do as he tells me, of course.  What I mean is, I will try it for another year.”

“If it does not succeed, come to us.”

“I cannot say what I will do.  I would die if I knew how.  Never be a tyrant, Oswald; or at any rate, not a cold tyrant.  And remember this, there is no tyranny to a woman like telling her of her duty.  Talk of beating a woman!  Beating might often be a mercy.”