Carinthia heard her brother’s fuller version of the earl’s communication to her uncle before the wild day of her marriage.  ’Not particularly fitted for the married state,’ Chillon phrased it, saying:  ’He seems to have known himself, he was honest so far.’  She was advised to think it over, that the man was her husband.

She had her brother’s heart in her breast, she could not misread him.  She thought it over, and felt a slight drag of compassion for the reluctant bridegroom.  That was a stretch long leagues distant from love with her; the sort of feeling one has for strange animals hurt and she had in her childish blindness done him a hurt, and he had bitten her.  He was a weak young nobleman; he had wealth for a likeness of strength; he had no glory about his head.  Why had he not chosen a woman to sit beside him who would have fancied his coronet a glory and his luxury a kindness?  But the poor young nobleman did not choose!  The sadly comic of his keeping to the pledge of his word—­his real wife—­the tyrant of the tyrant—­clothed him; the vision of him at the altar, and on the coach, and at the Royal Sovereign Inn, and into the dimness where a placidly smiling recollection met a curtain and lost the smile.

Suppose that her duty condemned her to stay in England on guard over Chillon’s treasure!  The perpetual struggle with a weak young nobleman of aimless tempers and rightabout changes, pretending to the part of husband, would, she foresaw, raise another figure of duty, enchaining a weak young woman.  The world supported his pretension; and her passion to serve as Chillon’s comrade sank at a damping because it was flame.  Chillon had done that; Lady Arpington, to some extent; Henrietta more.  A little incident, pointing in no direction, had left a shadow of a cloud, consequent upon Lady Arpington’s mention of Henrietta’s unprotectedness.  Stepping up the hill to meet her sister, on the morning of Henrietta’s departure for London under the convoy of Mr. Wythan, Carinthia’s long sight spied Kit Ines, or a man like him, in the meadow between Lekkatts and Croridge.  He stood before Henrietta, and vanished light-legged at a gesture.  Henrietta was descending to take her leave of her busied husband; her cheeks were flushed; she would not speak of the fellow, except to reply, ‘oh, a beggar,’ and kept asking whether she ought not to stay at Stoneridge.  And if she did she would lose the last of the Opera in London!  How could she help to investigate the cause of an explosion so considerate to them?  She sang snatches of melodies, clung to her husband, protested her inability to leave him, and went, appearing torn away.  As well bid healthy children lie abed on a bright summer morning, as think of holding this fair young woman bound to the circle of safety when she has her view of pleasure sparkling like the shore-sea mermaid’s mirror.