be injured, what's the use of saying I wish them all the
good in the world,--unless there's something to be gained by my
saying it? Now I don't care to tell you lies. I am quite willing that
you should know all the truth about me. Therefore I tell you that I'm
not best pleased that this minx should have already picked up another
man."

"He has the devil of a temper," said Dick Ross, wishing to make the
matter as pleasant as possible to his friend.

"So your Miss Holt is married," Ross said to his friend on the day
after the ceremony.

"Yes; she is married, and her troubles have now to begin. I wonder
whether she has told him the little episode of our loves."

"You may be sure of that," said Dick.

"I am not at all so sure of it. She may have told him when they first
became acquainted, but I cannot imagine her telling him afterwards.
He is as proud as she, and is just the man not to like it."

"It doesn't much signify to you at any rate," said the indifferent
Dick.

"I'm not so sure of that," said Sir Francis. "I like the truth to be
told. It may become my duty to take care that poor Mr. Western shall
know all about it."

"What a beast that fellow is for mischief!" said Dick Ross as he
walked home from his club that evening.

CHAPTER VII.

MISS ALTIFIORLA'S ARRIVAL.

Yes;--Sir Francis Geraldine was a beast for mischief! Thinking the
matter over, he resolved that Mr. Western should not be left in the
dark as to his wife's episode. And he determined that Mr. Western
would think more of the matter if it were represented to him that
his wife had been jilted, and had been jilted unmistakably before
they two had met each other on the Continent. He was right in this.
According to the usages of the world the lady would have less to say
for herself if that were the case and would have more difficulty in
saying it. Therefore the husband would be the more bound to hear it.
Sir Francis was a beast for mischief, but he knew what he was about.

But so did not Mrs. Western when she allowed those opportunities
to pass by her which came to her for telling her story before her
marriage. In very truth she had had no reason for concealing it but
that his story had been so nearly the same. On this account she had
put it off, and put it off,--and then the fitting time had passed
by. When she was with him alone after their marriage she could not
do it,--without confessing her fault in that she had not done it
before.