, and clasping her in
his arms said, even on her lips, "You ARE my dear wife! You are my very
own dear wife! Tell me what to do. Anything that is right, reasonable I
will do. We can never part."

"I will go to my father. I will never come back to you." And with these
words she rose, threw off his embrace, and with a sobbing cry ran, like
a terrified child, out of the room.

He sat down exhausted by his emotion, and sick with the thought she had
evoked in that one evil word. The publicity, the disgrace, the wrong
to Holy Church--ah, that was the cruelest wound! His own wrong was hard
enough, but that he, who would gladly die for the Church, should put
her to open shame! How could he bear it? Though it killed him, he must
prevent that wrong; yes, if the right eye offended it must be plucked
out. He must throw off his cassock, and turn away from the sacred
aisles; he must--he could not say the word; he would wait a little. Dora
would not leave him; it was impossible. He waited in a trance of aching
suspense. Nothing for an hour or more broke it--no footfall, no sound of
command or complaint. He was finally in hopes that Dora slept. Then he
was called to lunch, and he made a pretense of eating it alone. Dora
sent no excuse for her absence, and he could not trust himself to make
inquiry about her. In the middle of the afternoon he heard a carriage
drive to the door, and Dora, with her jewel-case in her hand, entered
it and was driven away. The sight astounded him. He ran to her room, and
found her maid packing her clothing. The woman answered his questions
sullenly. She said "Mrs. Stanhope had gone to Mrs. Denning's, and had
left orders for her trunks to be sent there." Beyond this she was silent
and ignorant. No sympathy for either husband or wife was in her heart.
Their quarrel was interfering with her own plans; she hated both of them
in consequence.

In the meantime Dora had reached her home. Her mother was dismayed and
hesitating, and her attitude raised again in Dora's heart the passion
which had provoked the step she had taken. She wept like a lost child.
She exclaimed against the horror of being Basil's wife forever and ever.
She reproached her mother for suffering her to marry while she was only
a child. She said she had been cruelly used in order to get the family
into social recognition. She was in a frenzy of grief at her supposed
sacrifice when her father came home. Her case was then won. With her
arms round