ehow, as an economy.

Major Basil discovered his wife's relation with Edward just before
he was sent to his other station. I don't know whether that was a
blackmailer's adroitness or just a trick of destiny. He may have known
of it all the time or he may not. At any rate, he got hold of, just
about then, some letters and things. It cost Edward three hundred pounds
immediately. I do not know how it was arranged; I cannot imagine how
even a blackmailer can make his demands. I suppose there is some sort of
way of saving your face. I figure the Major as disclosing the letters
to Edward with furious oaths, then accepting his explanations that the
letters were perfectly innocent if the wrong construction were not put
upon them. Then the Major would say: "I say, old chap, I'm deuced hard
up. Couldn't you lend me three hundred or so?" I fancy that was how it
was. And, year by year, after that there would come a letter from the
Major, saying that he was deuced hard up and couldn't Edward lend him
three hundred or so? Edward was pretty hard hit when Mrs Basil had to go
away. He really had been very fond of her, and he remained faithful to
her memory for quite a long time. And Mrs Basi had loved him very much
and continued to cherish a hope of reunion with him. Three days ago
there came a quite proper but very lamentable letter from her to
Leonora, asking to be given particulars as to Edward's death. She had
read the advertisement of it in an Indian paper. I think she must have
been a very nice woman....

And then the Ashburnhams were moved somewhere up towards a place or a
district called Chitral. I am no good at geography of the Indian Empire.
By that time they had settled down into a model couple and they never
spoke in private to each other. Leonora had given up even showing the
accounts of the Ashburnham estate to Edward. He thought that that was
because she had piled up such a lot of money that she did not want him
to know how she was getting on any more. But, as a matter of fact, after
five or six years it had penetrated to her mind that it was painful to
Edward to have to look on at the accounts of his estate and have no hand
in the management of it. She was trying to do him a kindness. And, up in
Chitral, poor dear little Maisie Maidan came along....

That was the most unsettling to Edward of all his affairs. It made him
suspect that he was inconstant. The affair with the Dolciquita he had
sized up as a short attack of