E. B.’

‘I think,’ wrote Mary, ’that we may safely believe him.  Such a lie would be too bad; he is incapable of it.  Remember, I have never charged him with falsehood.  I shall write and tell him that I accept his word.  Has it, or has it not, occurred to you to see Mrs. Widdowson herself?  Or, if there are insuperable objections, why not see Miss Madden?  We talk to each other in a sort of cypher, dear Rhoda.  Well, I desire nothing but your good, as I think you know, and you must decide for yourself where that good lies.’

Everard’s letter put Rhoda beside herself with wrath.  In writing it he knew it would come into her hands; he hoped to sting her with jealousy.  So Mrs. Widdowson had done him a service.  He was free to devote himself to Agnes Brissenden, with her six languages, her extreme liberality, her feminine charm.

If she could not crush out her love for this man she would poison herself—­as she had so often decided she would do if ever some hopeless malady, such as cancer, took hold upon her—­

And be content to feed his vanity?  To give him the lifelong reflection that, for love of him, a woman excelled by few in qualities of brain and heart had died like a rat?

She walked about the rooms, here and there, upstairs and downstairs, in a fever of unrest.  After all, was he not behaving in the very way she ought to desire?  Was he not helping her to hate him?  He struck at her with unmanly blows, thinking, no doubt, to quell her pride, and bring her to him in prostrate humility.  Never!  Even if it were proved in the clearest way that she ought to have believed him she would make no submission.  If he loved her he must woo once more.

But the suggestion in Mary’s letter was not fruitless.  When she had thought over it for a day or two she wrote to Virginia Madden, asking her as a favour to come to Queen’s Road on Saturday afternoon.  Virginia quickly replied with a promise to call, and punctually kept the engagement.  Though she was much better dressed than in the days previous to Monica’s marriage, she had lost something for which costume could not compensate:  her face had no longer that unmistakable refinement which had been wont to make her attire a secondary consideration.  A disagreeable redness tinged her eyelids and the lower part of her nose; her mouth was growing coarse and lax, the under-lip hanging a little; she smiled with a shrinking, apologetic shyness only seen in people who have done something to be ashamed of—­smiled even when she was endeavouring to look sorrowful; and her glance was furtive.  She sat down on the edge of a chair, like an anxious applicant for work or charity, and a moistness of the eyes, which obliged her to use her handkerchief frequently, strengthened this resemblance.

Rhoda could not play at smooth phrases with this poor, dispirited woman, whose change during the last few years, and especially during the last twelve months, had often occupied her thoughts in a very unpleasant way.  She came almost at once to the subject of their interview.