Those Ashtons
are going to make you pay publicly for your folly. Let them do it."

He had opened his lips to undeceive her, but stopped in time. As a
drowning man catches at a straw, so did he catch at this suggestion in
his hopeless despair; and he suffered her to remain in it. Anything to
stave off the real, dreadful truth.

"Maude," he rejoined, "it is for your sake. If I am sensitive as to
any--any disgrace being brought home to me, I declare that I think of
you more than of myself."

"Then don't think of it. It will be fun for me, rather than anything
else. I did not imagine the Ashtons would have done it, though. I wonder
what damages they'll go in for. Oh, Val, I should like to see you in the
witness-box!"

He did not answer.

"And it was not a parson?" she continued. "I'm sure he looked as much
like one as old Ashton himself. A professional man, then, I suppose,
Val?"

"Yes, a professional man." But even that little answer was given with
some hesitation, as though it had evasion in it.

Maude broke into a laugh. "Your friend, Pleader Carr--or whatever he
calls himself--must be as thin-skinned as you are, Val, to fancy that a
rubbishing action of that sort, brought against a husband, can reflect
disgrace on the wife! Separate, indeed! Has he lived in a wood all his
life? Well, I am going upstairs."

"A moment yet, Maude! You will take a caution from me, won't you? Don't
speak of this; don't allude to it, even to me. It may be arranged yet,
you know."

"So it may," acquiesced Maude. "Let your friend Carr see the doctor, and
offer to pay the damages down."

He might have resented this speech for Dr. Ashton's sake, in a happier
moment, but resentment had been beaten out of him now. And Lady Hartledon
decided that her husband was a simpleton, for instead of going to sleep
like a reasonable man, he tossed and turned by her side until daybreak.

CHAPTER XXI.

SECRET CARE.

From that hour Lord Hartledon was a changed man. He went about as one who
has some awful fear upon him, starting at shadows. That his manner was
inexplicable, even allowing that he had some great crime on his
conscience, a looker-on had not failed to observe. He was very tender
with his wife; far more so than he had been at all; anxious, as it
seemed, to indulge her every fancy, gratify her every whim. But when it
came to going into society with her, then he hesitated; he would and he
wouldn't, reminding Maude of his old va