‘It was those nasty dogs, Rosina,’ said the Lady Arabella.

’Well, I for one never approved of the hounds coming to Greshamsbury.  When a man has once involved his property he should not incur any expenses that are not absolutely necessary.  That is a golden rule which Mr Gresham ought to have remembered.  Indeed, I put it to him nearly in those very words; but Mr Gresham never did, and never will receive with common civility anything that comes from me.’

’I know, Rosina, he never did; and yet where would he have been but for the De Courcys?’ So exclaimed, in her gratitude, the Lady Arabella; to speak the truth, however, but for the De Courcys, Mr Gresham might have been at this moment on the top of Boxall Hill, monarch of all he surveyed.

‘As I was saying,’ continued the countess, ’I never approved of the hounds coming to Greshamsbury; but yet, my dear, the hounds can’t have eaten up everything.  A man with ten thousand a year ought to be able to keep hounds; particularly as he had a subscription.’

‘He says the subscription was little or nothing.’

’That’s nonsense, my dear.  Now, Arabella, what does he do with his money?  That’s the question.  Does he gamble?’

‘Well,’ said Lady Arabella, very slowly, ‘I don’t think he does.’  If the squire did gamble he must have done it very slyly, for he rarely went away from Greshamsbury, and certainly very few men looking like gamblers were in the habit of coming thither as guests.  ’I don’t think he does gamble.’  Lady Arabella put her emphasis on the word gamble, as though her husband, if he might perhaps be charitably acquitted of that vice, was certainly guilty of every other known in the civilized world.

‘I know he used,’ said Lady de Courcy, looking very wise, and rather suspicious.  She certainly had sufficient domestic reasons for disliking the propensity; ’I know he used; and when a man begins, he is hardly ever cured.’

‘Well, if he does, I don’t know it,’ said the Lady Arabella.

’The money, my dear, must go somewhere.  What excuse does he give when you tell him you want this and that—­all the common necessaries of life, that you have always been used to?’

‘He gives no excuse; sometimes he says the family is so large.’

’Nonsense!  Girls cost nothing; there’s only Frank, and he can’t have cost anything yet.  Can he be saving money to buy back Boxall Hill?’

‘Oh no!’ said the Lady Arabella, quickly.  ’He is not saving anything; he never did, and never will save, though he is so stingy to me.  He is hard pushed for money, I know that.’

‘Then where has it gone?’ said the Countess de Courcy, with a look of stern decision.

’Heaven only knows!  Now, Augusta is to be married.  I must of course have a few hundred pounds.  You should have heard how he groaned when I asked him for it.  Heaven only knows where the money goes!’ And the injured wife wiped a piteous tear from her eye with her fine dress cambric handkerchief.  ’I have all the sufferings and privations of a poor man’s wife, but I have none of the consolations.  He has no confidence in me; he never tells me anything; he never talks to me about his affairs.  If he talks to any one it is to that horrid doctor.’