myself counting the breaths of a dying woman.
The other day I was told I was envied!'

'Battle, battle, battle; for all of us, in every position!' said Dartrey
sharply, to clip a softness: 'except when one's attending on an invalid
uncle. Then it's peace; rather like extinction. And I can't be crying for
the end either. I bite my moustache and tap foot on the floor, out of his
hearing; make believe I'm patient. Now I 'll fetch Nesta.'

Mrs. Blathenoy came down with an arm on Nesta's shoulder. She held a
telegram, and said to Nataly--

'What can this mean? It's from my husband; he puts "Jacob": my husband's
Christian name:--so like my husband, where there's no concealment!
There--he says:

"Down to-night else pack ready start to-morrow." Can it signify, affairs
are bad with my husband in the city?'

It had that signification to Nataly's understanding. At the same time,
the pretty little woman's absurd lisping repetition of 'my husband' did
not seem without design to inflict the wound it caused.

In reality, it was not malicious; it came of the bewitchment of a silly
tongue by her knowledge of the secret to be controlled: and after
contrasting her fortunes with Nataly's, on her way downstairs, she had
comforted herself by saying, that at least she had a husband. She was not
aware that she dealt a hurt until she had found a small consolation in
the indulgence: for Captain Dartrey Fenellan admired this commanding
figure of a woman, who could not legally say that which the woman he
admired less, if at all, legally could say.

'I must leave you to interpret,' Nataly remarked.

Mrs. Blathenoy resented her unbefitting queenly style. For this reason,
she abstained from an intended leading up to mention of the
'singular-looking lady' seen riding with Miss Radnor more than once; and
as to whom, Miss Radnor (for one gives her the name) had not just now,
when questioned, spoken very clearly. So the mother's alarms were not
raised.

And really it was a pity, Mrs. Blathenoy said to Dartrey subsequently;
finding him colder than before Mrs. Radnor's visit; it was a pity,
because a young woman in Miss Radnor's position should not by any
possibility be seen in association with a person of commonly doubtful
appearance.

She was denied the petulant satisfaction of rousing the championship
bitter to her. Dartrey would not deliver an opinion on Miss Radnor's
conduct. He declined, moreover, to assist in elucidating the telegram by