“Oh, Katherine! how do you do?” she said, sharply, and not in the least abashed by any memory of their last meeting.  “I am up in town for a few days, and I couldn’t leave without seeing you.  You see I have too much feeling to turn my back on an old friend, however injured I may be by circumstances over which you had no control.  You are not looking well, Katie; you are so white, and your eyes don’t seem to be half open.”

“I am quite well, I assure you,” said Katherine, composedly, and avoiding a half-offered kiss by drawing a chair forward for her visitor.

“I wish I could say as much,” returned Mrs. Ormonde, with a deep sigh, throwing herself into it.  “I am perfectly wretched; Ormonde is quite intolerable at times since everything has collapsed.  I am sure I often wish you had never done anything for the boys or me, and then we should never have fancied ourselves rich.  Of course I don’t blame you; you meant well, but it is all very unfortunate.”

“It is indeed; but is it possible that Colonel Ormonde is so unmanly as to—­”

“Unmanly?” interrupted his wife.  “Manly, you mean.  Of course he revenges himself on me.  Not always.  He is all right sometimes; but if anything goes wrong, then I suffer.  Fortunately I was prudent, and made little savings, with which I am—­but”—­interrupting herself—­“that is not worth speaking about.”

“I am sorry you are unhappy, Ada,” said Katherine, with her ready sympathy.

“Oh, don’t think I allow myself to be trodden on,” cried Mrs. Ormonde, her eyes suddenly lighting up.  “It was a hard fight at first, but I saw it was a struggle for life; and when we knew the worst, and Ormonde raved and roared, I said I should leave him and take baby (I could, you know, till he was seven years old), and that the servants would swear I was in fear of my life; and I should have done it, and carried my case, too!  I’m not sure it would not have been better for me.  But he gave in, and asked me to stay.  I felt pretty safe then.  Now, when he is disagreeable, I burst into tears at dinner, and upset my glass of claret on the table-cloth, and totter out of the room weak and tremulous.  I can see the butler and James ready to tear him to pieces.  When he is good-humored, so am I; and when he tries to bully, why, what with trembling so much that I break something he likes, and fits of hysterics, and being awfully frightened before strangers, and making things go wrong when he wishes to create a great effect on some one, I think he begins to see it is better not to quarrel with me.  Still, it is awfully miserable, compared with what it used to be when I really thought he loved me.  How pleasant we all were together at Castleford before this horrid man turned up!  Why didn’t that awkward bush-ranger take better aim?”

“I dare say George Liddell is not quite of your opinion,” said Katherine, smiling at her sister-in-law’s candor.

“He was quite rich before,” continued Mrs. Ormonde, querulously.  “Why couldn’t he be satisfied to stay out there and spend his own money?  I hate selfishness and greed!”