d."

"He knew it as well as I did," he replied, and as he spoke there
came a dark scowl across his brow. "His writing to you is a piece of
infernal impudence."

"Oh, Ferdinand!"

"You don't understand, but I do. He deserves to be horsewhipped for
daring to write to you, and if I can come across him he shall have
it."

"Oh,--for heaven's sake!"

"A man who was your rejected lover,--who has been trying to marry you
for the last two years, presuming to commence a correspondence with
you without your husband's sanction!"

"He meant you to see it. He says I am to tell you."

"Psha! That is simple cowardice. He meant you not to tell me; and
then when you had answered him without telling me, he would have had
the whip-hand of you."

"Oh, Ferdinand, what evil thoughts you have!"

"You are a child, my dear, and must allow me to dictate to you what
you ought to think in such a matter as this. I tell you he knew all
about my candidature, and that what he has said here to the contrary
is a mere lie;--yes, a lie." He repeated the word because he saw
that she shrank at hearing it; but he did not understand why she
shrank,--that the idea of such an accusation against Arthur Fletcher
was intolerable to her. "I have never heard of such a thing," he
continued. "Do you suppose it is common for men who have been thrown
over to write to the ladies who have rejected them immediately after
their marriage?"

"Do not the circumstances justify it?"

"No;--they make it infinitely worse. He should have felt himself to
be debarred from writing to you, both as being my wife and as being
the wife of the man whom he intends to oppose at Silverbridge."

This he said with so much anger that he frightened her. "It is not my
fault," she said.

"No; it is not your fault. But you should regard it as a great fault
committed by him."

"What am I to do?"

"Give me the letter. You, of course, can do nothing."

"You will not quarrel with him?"

"Certainly I will. I have quarrelled with him already. Do you think
I will allow any man to insult my wife without quarrelling with him?
What I shall do I cannot yet say, and whatever I may do, you had
better not know. I never thought much of these Herefordshire swells
who believe themselves to be the very cream of the earth, and now I
think less of them than ever."

He was then silent, and slowly she took herself out of the room, and
went away to dress. All this was very terrible. He had never b