west of France?  Was not anything better than this flying in the face of God and man?  Perhaps Trevelyan did not himself like the idea of the quiet dull French town.  Perhaps he thought that the flying in the face of God and man was all done by his wife, not by him; and that it was right that his wife should feel the consequences.  After many such entreaties, many such arguments, it was at last decided that the house in Curzon Street should be given up, and that he and his wife live apart.

‘And what about Nora Rowley?’ asked Lady Milborough, who had become aware by this time of Nora’s insane folly in having refused Mr Glascock.

‘She will go with her sister, I suppose.’

’And who will maintain her?  Dear, dear, dear!  It does seem as though some young people were bent upon cutting their own throats, and all their family’s.’

Poor Lady Milborough just at this time went as near to disliking the Rowleys as was compatible with her nature.  It was not possible to her to hate anybody.  She thought that she hated the Colonel Osbornes; but even that was a mistake.  She was very angry, however, with both Mrs Trevelyan and her sister, and was disposed to speak of them as though they had been born to create trouble and vexation.

Trevelyan had not given any direct answer to that question about Nora Rowley’s maintenance, but he was quite prepared to bear all necessary expense in that direction, at any rate till Sir Marmaduke should have arrived.  At first there had been an idea that the two sisters should go to the house of their aunt, Mrs Outhouse.  Mrs Outhouse was the wife as the reader may perhaps remember of a clergyman living in the east of London.  St. Diddulph’s-in-the-East was very much in the east indeed.  It was a parish outside the City, lying near the river, very populous, very poor, very low in character, and very uncomfortable.  There was a rectory-house, queerly situated at the end of a little blind lane, with a gate of its own, and a so-called garden about twenty yards square.  But the rectory of St. Diddulph’s cannot be said to have been a comfortable abode.  The neighbourhood was certainly not alluring.  Of visiting society within a distance of three or four miles there was none but what was afforded by the families of other East-end clergymen.  And then Mr Outhouse himself was a somewhat singular man.  He was very religious, devoted to his work, most kind to the poor; but he was unfortunately a strongly-biased man, and at the same time very obstinate withal.  He had never allied himself very cordially with his wife’s brother, Sir Marmaduke, allowing himself to be carried away by a prejudice that people living at the West-end, who frequented clubs and were connected in any way with fashion, could not be appropriate companions for himself.  The very title which Sir Marmaduke had acquired was repulsive to him, and had induced him to tell his wife more than once that Sir this or Sir that could not be fitting associates for a