of tolerance of her, as
though he deemed her a necessary evil, but none of that aversion
which he would have shown had he felt the faintest suspicion of the
truth. That truth would have been too terrific to have been borne
thus by any one. No. He must believe that Hilda was really his wife,
or he could not be able to treat her with that courtesy which he
always showed--which, cold though it might be in her eyes, was still
none the less the courtesy which a gentleman shows to a lady who is
his equal. But had he suspected the truth she would have been a
criminal of the basest kind, and courtesy from him to her would have
been impossible. He saw plainly, therefore, that the truth with
regard to Hilda could not be in any way even suspected, and that thus
far she was safe. Another thing showed that there could be no
connection between these two arising out of their family affairs.
Certainly Lord Chetwynde, with his family pride, was not the man who
could ally himself to one who was familiar with the family shame;
and, moreover, Hilda had assured him, from her own knowledge, that
Lord Chetwynde had never learned any thing of that shame. He had
never known it at home, he could not have found it out very easily in
India, and in whatever way he had become acquainted with this
American, it was scarcely probable that he could have found it out
from him. Obed Chute was evidently his friend; but for that very
reason, and from the very nature of the case, he could not possibly
be known to Lord Chetwynde as the sole living contemporary witness of
his mother's dishonor. Obed Chute himself was certainly the last man
in the world, as Gualtier thought, who would have been capable of
volunteering such information as that. These conclusions to which he
came were natural, and were based on self-evident truths. Yet still
the question remained: How was it that these two men, who more than
all others were connected with those affairs which most deeply
affected himself and Hilda, and from whom he had the chief if not the
only reason to fear danger, could now be joined in such intimate
friendship? And this was a question which was unanswerable.

As Hilda's position seemed safe, he thought of his own, and wondered
whether there could be danger to himself from this. Singularly
enough, on that eventful day he had been seen by both Lord Chetwynde
and Obed Chute. Lord Chetwynde, he believed, could not have
recognized him, or he would not have given u