In a couple of years after that calamity had befallen which had robbed Lady Castlewood of a little—­a very little—­of her beauty, and her careless husband’s heart (if the truth must be told, my lady had found not only that her reign was over, but that her successor was appointed, a Princess of a noble house in Drury Lane somewhere, who was installed and visited by my lord at the town eight miles off—­pudet haec opprobria dicere nobis)—­a great change had taken place in her mind, which, by struggles only known to herself, at least never mentioned to any one, and unsuspected by the person who caused the pain she endured—­had been schooled into such a condition as she could not very likely have imagined possible a score of months since, before her misfortunes had begun.

She had oldened in that time as people do who suffer silently great mental pain; and learned much that she had never suspected before.  She was taught by that bitter teacher Misfortune.  A child the mother of other children, but two years back her lord was a god to her; his words her law; his smile her sunshine; his lazy commonplaces listened to eagerly, as if they were words of wisdom—­all his wishes and freaks obeyed with a servile devotion.  She had been my lord’s chief slave and blind worshipper.  Some women bear farther than this, and submit not only to neglect but to unfaithfulness too—­but here this lady’s allegiance had failed her.  Her spirit rebelled, and disowned any more obedience.  First she had to bear in secret the passion of losing the adored object; then to get further initiation, and to find this worshipped being was but a clumsy idol:  then to admit the silent truth, that it was she was superior, and not the monarch her master:  that she had thoughts which his brains could never master, and was the better of the two; quite separate from my lord although tied to him, and bound, as almost all people (save a very happy few), to work all her life alone.  My lord sat in his chair, laughing his laugh, cracking his joke, his face flushing with wine—­my lady in her place over against him—­he never suspecting that his superior was there, in the calm resigned lady, cold of manner, with downcast eyes.  When he was merry in his cups, he would make jokes about her coldness, and, “D—–­ it, now my lady is gone, we will have t’other bottle,” he would say.  He was frank enough in telling his thoughts, such as they were.  There was little mystery about my lord’s words or actions.  His Fair Rosamond did not live in a Labyrinth, like the lady of Mr. Addison’s opera, but paraded with painted cheeks and a tipsy retinue in the country town.  Had she a mind to be revenged, Lady Castlewood could have found the way to her rival’s house easily enough; and, if she had come with bowl and dagger, would have been routed off the ground by the enemy with a volley of Billingsgate, which the fair person always kept by her.