In society, Hannaford was an entertaining, sometimes a charming, man, with a flow of well-informed talk, of agreeable anecdote; his friends liked to have him at the dinner-table; he could never be at a loss for a day or two’s board and lodging when his home wearied him.  Under his own roof he seldom spoke save to find fault, rarely showed anything but acrid countenance.  He and his wife were completely alienated; but for their child, they would long ago have parted.  It had been a love match, and the daughter’s name, Olga, still testified to the romance of their honeymoon; but that was nearly twenty years gone by, and of these at least fifteen had been spent in discord, concealed or flagrant.  Mrs. Hannaford was something of an artist; her husband spoke of all art with contempt —­except the great art of human slaughter.  She liked the society of foreigners; he, though a remarkable linguist, at heart distrusted and despised all but English-speaking folk.  As a girl in her teens, she had been charmed by the man’s virile accomplishments, his soldierly bearing and gay talk of martial things, though Hannaford was only a teacher of science.  Nowadays she thought with dreary wonder of that fascination, and had come to loathe every trapping and habiliment of war.  She knew him profoundly selfish, and recognised the other faults which had hindered so clever a man from success in life; indolent habits, moral untrustworthiness, and a conceit which at times menaced insanity.  He hated her, she was well aware, because of her cold criticism; she returned his hate with interest.

Save in suicide, of which she had sometimes thought, Mrs. Hannaford saw but one hope of release.  A sister of hers had married a rich American, and was now a widow in falling health.  That sister’s death might perchance endow her with the means of liberty; she hung upon every message from across the Atlantic.

She had a brother, too; a distinguished, but not a wealthy man.  Dr. Derwent would gladly have seen more of her, gladly have helped to cheer her life, but a hearty antipathy held him aloof from Lee Hannaford.  Communication between the two families was chiefly maintained through Dr. Derwent’s daughter Irene, now in her nineteenth year.  The girl had visited her aunt at Geneva, and since then had occasionally been a guest at Ewell.  Having just returned from a winter abroad with her father, and no house being ready for her reception in London, Irene was even now about to pass a week with her relatives.  They expected her to-day.  The prospect of Irene’s arrival enabled Mrs. Hannaford and Olga to find pleasure in the sunshine, which otherwise brought them little solace.